S U N D AY, A P R I L 1 4 , 2 0 1 9

SPECIAL COMMEMORATIVE SECTION

DEAN HOFFMEYER/TIMES-DISPATCH

VIRGINIA
For three thrilling weeks,
Kyle Guy (above) and the
Wahoos went on a run
for the ages, one that
included wild finishes

CAVALIERS
and, ultimately, a
national title.

2019 NCAA MEN’S

NATIONAL CHAMPIONS
U2 Sunday, april 14, 2019 • • • richmond TimeS-diSpaTch

V I R G I N I A CAVA L I E R S
2019 NCAA MEN’S BASKETBALL NATIONAL CHAMPIONS

Bennett’s journey now includes title

Paul Woody
pwoody@TimesDispatch.com
For someone who didn’t plan to
coach, and for someone who, when
he started coaching, didn’t think
about going to the Final Four, Tony
Bennett has done OK.
“I never thought of myself as
being a national championship
coach,” Bennett said. “I wasn’t
even going to get into coaching. I
wasn’t crazy about it.
“I loved playing, and then I saw
my dad’s team [Wisconsin] go to
the Final Four,” Bennett said. “I
was the volunteer manager, and I
got into it. I love the young men. I
love the game, but it’s not the be-
all and end-all.”
His father is Dick Bennett, a leg-
endary coach in Wisconsin, who
spent most of his career in that
state, coaching at Wisconsin-Ste-
vens Point, Wisconsin-Green Bay
and Wisconsin. Then, he retired.
But he came out of retirement to
take on the rebuilding job at Wash-
ington State. Rebuilding programs
apparently is a Bennett family
specialty.
He took his son with him as an
assistant, a role the younger Ben-
nett had held at Wisconsin, first
with his father and then with an-
other legendary Wisconsin coach,
Bo Ryan.
Dick Bennett wanted to help his
son obtain a job as a head coach.
That worked out when, after three
seasons at Washington State,
the elder Bennett retired and the
younger Bennett was hired to re-
place him.
Tony Bennett proved he not
only had what it took to be a head
coach, but he also was adept at re-
cruiting the exact type of players
needed to rebuild a program.
That’s what got him to Virginia.
Athletic director Craig Littlepage
knew he had a basketball program
that desperately needed a rebuild.
He surprised everyone by lur-
ing Bennett across the country to
Charlottesville.
Things have gone well for Ben-
nett and Virginia, and that’s a bit of
an understatement.
Monday night, the coach who
didn’t think he wanted to coach,
the coach who never thought of
himself as a Final Four coach, led
the Cavaliers to a national cham-
pionship with an 85-77 victory, in
overtime, against Texas Tech.
The Cavaliers reflect their coach.
Monday night during the game,
Bennett was cool, calm and col-
lected. Down the stretch when
Monday night, the coach who didn’t
think he wanted to coach, the coach who
never thought of himself as a Final Four
coach, led the Cavaliers to a national
championship with an 85-77 victory, in
overtime, against Texas Tech.
Virginia had to score to force over-
time, Bennett called the right plays
and the players executed them
perfectly. After the game, Bennett
was cool, calm and collected, as
he always is, win or lose, joyful or
disappointed.
In the stands was the man who
nurtured Bennett’s career, from
coaching him at Wisconsin-Green
Bay to hiring him as an assistant at
Wisconsin and Washington State,
Dick Bennett.
“If Tony went over the moon on
this, he would surprise both his
mother and I,” Dick Bennett said
after the national championship
victory over Texas Tech. “He ap-
preciates it for what it is.
“He loves the game. He loves
these kids, and he’ll probably enjoy
it, but he won’t go crazy with it. He
never has, ever since he’s been a
little kid.”
A year earlier, Bennett and the
Cavaliers had suffered their big-
gest disappointment. They entered
the 2018 NCAA tournament as
the No. 1 of all No. 1 seeds. Then,
they became the first No. 1 seed
ever to lose to a No. 16 seed, the
University of Maryland Baltimore
County, in the opening round of
the tournament.
The irony of the situation is that
without that loss, Virginia probably
would not have finished the 2018-
19 season with a victory.
“You have scars, right?” Tony
Bennett said. “Does it go away
completely? No. I wish it hadn’t
happened in some ways. Now, I
say, well it brought us a ticket here,
so be it.
“Is the pain gone? I still feel a lit-
tle ‘uhh’ because I remember that
feeling. But I think we’re OK.”
That would seem to be the case.
In the pursuit of ways to help the
players get past the UMBC disap-
pointment, Bennett’s wife, Laurel,
recalled a TEDx talk she had at-
tended in Charlottesville in 2014.
She thought the message of the
speaker, Donald Davis, a retired
United Methodist minister, might
help Bennett and his team.
Davis’ message was one he
learned from his father, Joe Davis,
who had severely injured himself
when he accidentally sliced his leg
with an axe when he was 5 years
old. Doctors were able to save the
leg, but Davis’ father lost his knee-
cap. That meant he couldn’t go
into the family business of farming.
Joe Davis’ mother, Donald Davis’
grandmother, made her son tell
the story of his leg over and over,
each time from a different perspec-
tive — his, his parents’, even the
doctors’ who saved his leg. Each
time, the ultimate message was the
same: When something that seems
tragic happens, if you use it cor-
rectly, it can buy you a ticket to a
place you might not have gotten in
any other way.
“You talk about being almost
prophetic,” Bennett said. “I don’t
know, maybe we could have [won
a national championship with-
out the loss to UMBC], but I don’t
know.
“Going through what we did last
year ... it helped me as a coach. It
drew me closer, most importantly,
to my faith in the Lord, drew me
closer to my wife and children,
just because you realize that’s
unconditional.”
The foundation for a national
championship was set before
the players on the team that won
UVA’s first national championship
in men’s basketball arrived. When
Ty Jerome, Kyle Guy, De’Andre
Hunter and Jay Huff came on
their recruiting visits, Bennett told
them such players as Joe Harris,
Malcolm Brogdan and Justin An-
derson, all now in the NBA, had es-
tablished a baseline of excellence.
Bennett told those recruits Vir-
ginia already had won ACC cham-
pionships and been to the Elite
Eight of the NCAA tournament.
“I said, ‘We’re asking you to
build on that foundation ... that’s
going to be the hardest step,’” Ben-
nett said. “I said I want guys who
want a chance at a title fight.’”
Bennett got those guys. Virginia
got its national championship.
To get there, they used a loss
that had taken them to the lowest
point of their careers as a ticket to
a place they might not otherwise
have reached.
(804) 649-6444
@World_of_Woody

RTD rose to the challenge this

Michael PhilliPs/TiMes-DisPaTch
week.
Hoffmeyer was joined by
writers Mike Barber and Paul
Woody, as well as myself, in
Minneapolis.
Back home in Richmond,
all hands came on deck Mon-
day night, with sports de-
signers Chris Wilbers, Dave
Sager and Vince Shaw getting
an assist from Stan Cary and
Wayne Epps Jr. on editing.
While national media tried
to muscle their way into the
story, Team RTD knew the
ins and outs of the team from
spending time with them
over the past 10 seasons
under Tony Bennett.
Barber took a deep dive
into Bennett’s recruiting pat-
terns on Sunday, while Mon-
day night as the celebration
raged, I was invited into the
off-limits coaches’ locker
room to chat with assistant
coaches I had previously cov-
ered in Charlottesville.
The stadium itself was mas-
sive — several times larger
than a basketball arena. We
had to hustle between inter-
view rooms while the players

Deadline champs
Times-Dispatch
photographer
and video
editor Dean
Hoffmeyer was
covering his How Team RTD covered the Final Four
second Final
Four. His first
By MICHAEL PHILLIPS • richmond Times-dispatch
was VCU’s run
in 2011.
The question photogra-
pher Dean Hoffmeyer gets
asked most: How do you
manage to be everywhere at
the same time?
He had the shot of Kyle
Guy being fouled by Samir
Doughty at the end of the
Virginia-Auburn game, and
also the wild celebration two
nights later following the
final victory.
It’s not magic. It’s a
remote.
Hoffmeyer brought six
cameras with him. Two of
the cameras stayed with him,
the other four were mounted
around U.S. Bank Stadium,
From left, Mike Barber, Dean Hoffmeyer, Michael Phillips and Paul
Woody, The Times-Dispatch’s coverage team in Minneapolis.
controlled via remote. That’s
how he ended up with the
spectacular photos you’ve
seen all week.
But it takes a village to
cover a champion, and Team
were chauferred by golf cart.
Each day we were given
one hour to interview play-
ers, then coach Tony Bennett
spoke from a podium.
During the games, we sat
below the action, as the court
was on a stage.
Our time on the road
taught us a lot about each
other, too. Barber and Hoff-
meyer were paired in a hotel
room — they’re the loudest
snorers of the group.
When it came time to
leave, the adventure was only
beginning. With demand
high and flights expensive,
Hoffmeyer found himself on
a five-hour layover in Boston;
I flew from Minnesota to Vir-
ginia by way of Orlando.
We return with the memo-
ries of having seen one of the
greatest NCAA tournaments
of all time, and the stories of
what it was like to be there,
many of which are in the fol-
lowing pages.
mphillips@timesdispatch.com
(804) 649-6546
@michaelpRTD
Richmond Times-dispaTch • • • sunday, apRil 14, 2019 U3

Road to redemption started early

most people will think back
to for this year’s title was
March 16, 2018.
That’s when UMBC
handed Virginia an upset
loss that, as the popular nar-
rative at the time went, Ben-
nett’s program might never
recover from. A 16-seed had
never before knocked off a
one-seed and the stunning
loss was just proof, critics
said, that Bennett’s defense-
first, slow-paced offensive
ZacK WaJsGRas/The DailY PROGRess approach could not and
Virginia’s De’Andre Hunter, Ty Jerome and Kyle Guy committed to the Cavaliers four years ago, would not ever get him to a
forming the core of what would become the most talented roster UVA has fielded in years. Final Four.
Bennett and his players
viewed it entirely differently.
us a ticket to a national
championship.”
And it prepared the team
for a tournament run for
the ages. Down at the half
against Gardner Webb, the
crowd cheering for the Bull-
dogs to do it again to UVA,
the Cavaliers rallied back.
Down two points with
5.9 seconds to play against
Purdue in the Elite Eight, ju-
nior forward Mamadi Dia-
kite scored a basket that will
long live in tournament lore,
off a marvelous pass from
freshman point guard Kihei
Clark, sending the game to
overtime and Virginia on to

As soon as last year ended, the work
began for a 2019 team full of potential
By MIKE BARBER • Richmond Times-dispatch
Virginia.
The last name on the
bracket.
How did UVA basketball
shed the label of “team that
can’t win in March,” swap-
ping it out for the far more
desirable tag of national
champion? What prepared
these Cavaliers to march
through March and advance
in April all the way to the
program’s first title?
Where did the intestinal
fortitude to outlast Purdue,
Auburn and finally Texas
Tech in three straight tour-
nament nail-biters that
could have filled their own
One Shining Moment mon-
tage come from?
Maybe it started back in
2009, when former athlet-
ics director Craig Littlepage
hired Tony Bennett from
Washington State, prompt-
ing fans to joke about rather
having his namesake, the
famous lounge singer. Ben-
nett was 39 at the time and
coming off a three-year stint
succeeding his father at
Washington State.
He came to UVA at a time
when fans were clamor-
ing for Tubby Smith, Rick
Barnes or Jeff Capel. Ben-
nett preached stout defense
and patient offense. He fin-
ished 15-16, tied for ninth
in the ACC, and missed the
postseason.
A decade — and more
than his fair share of March
disappointments — later,
Bennett stood on a stage at
midcourt at U.S. Bank Sta-
dium in Minneapolis and
slammed a “Virginia” decal
onto the final line of CBS’s
oversized bracket.
Maybe it started four
years ago, when Bennett re-
cruited Kyle Guy, Ty Jerome
and De’Andre Hunter to
UVA, assembling the core of
the team that would go 66-6
the past two years. Getting
involved early with all three
helped Bennett and Virginia
land the trio of four-star
prospects who would each
shape this tournament run.
Purdue coach Matt
Painter described Jerome as
the “head of the snake,” the
player it all starts with when
looking at the Cavaliers. Je-
rome averaged 16.5 points,
5.2 rebounds and six as-
sists per game in the NCAA
tournament.
Maybe it started with
one of those many, painful
March setbacks — against
Michigan State in 2014 and
2015, against Syracuse in
the Elite Eight in 2016 or the
blowout loss to Florida in
2017.
But really, the origin story
The pain of that day, and
the months that followed,
would simply become a part
of their story. Their plans to
ascend to the top of college
basketball were unchanged.
Sitting in front of the
media that day, answering
questions about the historic
upset, Guy told reporters
it would be “easy for us to
bounce back” because of
the principles Bennett had
instilled in the team.
When this season began,
Bennett encouraged his
team to “run to the start-
ing line,” an important re-
minder that there are no
do-overs in sports and the
program’s only path to fu-
ture success would be a
long one, beginning with
preseason workouts, grind-
ing through the regular sea-
son, then marching into the
tournament.
“If you learn to use it
right, the adversity, it will
buy you a ticket to a place
you couldn’t have gone any
other way,” Bennett said.
“Going through what we did
last year, it helped me as a
coach. All the stuff that they
talked about, I think, bought
one of the most dramatic
Final Fours in history.
Guy needed to bury a late
corner 3-pointer, then sink
three free throws with 0.6
seconds remaining to push
UVA past Auburn in the na-
tional semifinal.
And then came a national
title game that nearly gave
fans coronaries on the way
to a coronation.
Hunter’s 3-pointer with
14 seconds left sending the
title game into overtime
where Virginia finally fin-
ished the run.
Redemption was never
Bennett’s rallying cry.
He urged his players
to take joy in the pursuit
of a championship. It’s a
message as poetic as it is
practical.
Unlike more micro goals
— avenge UMBC, dis-
pel the critics — Bennett’s
theme is evergreen. If any-
thing, it may resonate even
more deeply with his future
teams. Why?
Because in 2019, it’s an
approach that produced a
national championship.
mbarber@timesdispatch.com
@RTD_MikeBarber

Michael PhilliPs/TiMes-DisPaTch
Former UVA players Joe Harris, Malcolm Brogdon, Justin Anderson and
Devon Hall (left to right) watch the “One Shining Moment” video montage
after the Cavaliers won the title Monday night in Minneapolis.

Title extra sweet

for former players
‘The foundation’ saluted by
current Cavs for paving the way
By MICHAEL PHILLIPS • Richmond Times-dispatch

MINNEAPOLIS — The 2019 Vir- “Time and time again, we don’t

ginia Cavaliers were the school’s
first national champions, but in
the aftermath of the title, they
were quick to credit the play-
ers who came before them in
Charlottesville.
Many of those players made the
trip to see the game in person, cel-
ebrating on the confetti-strewn
court after the victory.
“This is for everybody,” said as-
sistant coach Jason Williford. “All
the alums, all the former play-
ers, our guys, the guys before that.
Everybody.”
Among the bold-faced names in
attendance were Ralph Sampson,
Roger Mason, Harold Deane, An-
drew Kennedy, Corey Alexander,
Justin Anderson, Joe Harris and
Malcolm Brogdon, representing
the generations of Wahoos.
“I’m just excited, man,” said
Brogdon. “They did an amazing
job.”
Anderson said he was watching
ESPN Monday morning and watch-
ing the pundits complain about the
Cavaliers’ style.
get the respect we deserve,” he
said. “It’s ridiculous. It’s so hard to
put into words right now. I’m just
so proud of the organization.
“It’s a beautiful thing to watch,
and a great thing to be a part of.”
For coach Tony Bennett, it was
the culmination of a process that
began 10 years ago when he arrived
in Charlottesville.
“I remember telling [the current
class], ‘Look, the foundation has
been laid by guys — Joe and Mal-
colm were here and all the guys
who went before,’” Bennett said.
“We had won some ACC cham-
pionships, we’ve been to the Elite
Eight. I said, ‘We’re asking you to
build on that foundation, and even
at that house, that’s going to be the
hardest step.’”
It was the most rewarding, too,
part of the reason why so many
past players made the trek to Min-
neapolis, to celebrate the end of the
journey.
mphillips@timesdispatch.com
(804) 649-6546
@michaelpRTD
U4 SUNDAY, APRIL 14, 2019 • • • RICHMOND TIMES-DISPATCH

V I R G I N I A CAVA L I E R S
2019 NCAA MEN’S BASKETBALL NATIONAL CHAMPIONS

DEAn HoffMEyER/TiMEs-DispATcH

This moment shone extra bright

UVA students
traveled from
Charlottesville
to Minneapolis
to be a part of
the action at
the Final Four. Titles are won every year, but rarely are the stories this good
Stories of the 2018-19 Vir-
ginia Cavaliers will be told
for decades upon decades to
come.
From “The Corner” to every
far-reaching border of Wahoo
Nation, fans, everywhere, will
have countless con-
versations remember-
ing “The Play” (against
Purdue), Kyle Guy’s
clutchness at the line
against Auburn, and
Ty Jerome finding De-
Andre Hunter to send
the national cham-
pionship game into
overtime.
Also forever tied to this team
will be their loss to UMBC the
year prior, as should the words
that Tony Bennett pulled from
the now famous TEDx talk
he and the team watched on
the recommendation of the
coach’s wife, Laurel.
“If you learn to use it right,
the adversity, it will buy you a
ticket to a place you couldn’t
have gone any other way.”
If there ever is a statue raised
of Bennett outside John Paul
Jones Arena, those are the
words that should be etched at
the base.
What was once a nice little
anecdote by Bennett, when
he relayed last year that Ty Je-
rome said the historic first-
round loss would only be part
of their story, became a prom-
ise fulfilled Monday night in
Minneapolis.
“Forget last year,”
said Jerome. “This
is everything you
dream of since you’re
a little kid. I’m not
even thinking about
Wes UMBC right now. I’m
McElroy just thinking this is a
dream come true.”
This dream did
come true. But, with all due re-
spect, Ty, let’s not forget last
year. Let’s never forget what
happened to the Cavaliers last
year, for it only makes the story
more meaningful.
This Virginia Cavaliers team
may be one of my all-time fa-
vorite sports stories. Not just
because they won it all, but
that they never accepted that
one part of their story would be
their final chapter.
What this team went through
wasn’t tragic. It wasn’t a ter-
minal diagnosis, yet it wasn’t
without scars and damage to
overcome, as Kyle Guy has spo-
ken openly about overcoming
anxiety issues.
That loss 13 months ago
could have fractured a team,
leaving them bitter and em-
barrassed. However, instead
of just accepting what life had
thrown at them, this group re-
alized there was something big-
ger out there for them. Instead
of being weakened, they grew
stronger and more together be-
cause of it.
“What that says, if you learn
to use it right, the adversity, it
will buy you a ticket to a place
you couldn’t have gone any
other way,” said Bennett again
on Monday night. “I don’t
know, maybe we could have,
but I don’t know, going through
what we did last year and hav-
ing to — you know, it helped
me as a coach. All the stuff
that they talked about, I think,
bought us a ticket to a national
championship.”
The adversity bought Vir-
ginia a ticket on a thrill ride
the likes of which had never
been seen before in college
basketball.
Yet much deeper, below the
confetti and streamers, this
was also a story that not only
molded a team, but people.
While they may not fully un-
derstand it yet, this Virginia
team will forever carry this
“ticket” with them at reunions,
banner raisings and every time
somebody says, “I remember
2019.” It will also be with them
into marriage, fatherhood, and
when their basketball careers
are over.
What this group of Wahoos
realized isn’t just how to win a
championship, but also that life
can throw you the most humili-
ating and humbling challenges.
Yet if they hold onto that
ticket, as Dr. Seuss once wrote,
“Oh, the places you’ll go.”
Watching Bennett stand on
the back of the podium taking
in “One Shining Moment,” his
smile was one of pride, know-
ing these men just learned that
life was something bigger than
a game or a loss or a setback.
Hopefully, if you were paying
close enough attention to the
story of these Virginia Cavaliers,
you learned something as well.
Wes McElroy hosts a sports talk show
weekdays from 3-6 p.m. on 910 AM.
He also writes a weekly column for the
Richmond Times-Dispatch.

UVA radio announcer didn’t think that, but there just seemed to feel like
this “team of destiny” component to this. That
was also in [my] mind. I never felt like Virginia
was out. They, kind of, had that fairy dust with

had courtside seat to

them along the way, and you kind of knew that.
Question: What made you feel that way?
Answer: It’s funny, I talked to Laurel Bennett,
Tony’s wife, in the exercise room when we first
got to the Final Four and I asked, “Can you be-

‘the ultimate story’

Dave Koehn is the voice of the Cavaliers, and after 11 years behind the mic in Charlottesville, on Mon-
day night he got to call a basketball national championship. Special correspondent Wes McElroy chatted
with him about crazy finishes, “fairy dust,” and being able to tell the story of the ’Hoos.
Question: From the vantage point of the guy
who calls the action, which was the craziest finish
in this run?
Answer: I think, honestly, the Final Four. It
was cool, but it was this strange development
as it played out, and I think it was just crazier in
that it was a foul inside a second, where you have
a guy [Kyle Guy], that has all this time to think
about this and a guy who had all these narratives
floating through his brain from a year ago, who
started this tournament shooting 11 percent from
beyond the arc before breaking through against
Purdue, and now he’s in this situation.
To have to make three free throws in that spot
with that kind of pressure, I think that was un-
precedented and it was just crazier to me.
Question: At any point in these wild endings,
was there ever a moment where you thought, this
really might end?
Answer: I’m inherently someone, who if not
careful, can see the glass half empty, so I have to
be careful with that, but in this case I was never
convinced they were ever going to lose [in any of
AnDREW sHURTLEff/THE DAiLy pRoGREss
Voice of the Cavaliers Dave Koehn (left) interviews
Kyle Guy in front of fans as the team returns
home after winning the title. Koehn has been in
Charlottesville for 11 years, and was ‘so very happy’
for coach Tony Bennett on Monday night.
these situations]. Yeah, the thought enters your
mind, and most would be lying if they said they
lieve we are here?”
She said, “Yeah, I can. It’ll all just seems like it’s
very meant to be.”
That stuck with me as I watched this all play
out in the first game against Auburn and then in
the championship, that was sort of dancing in my
brain, that this is sort of meant to be and it just
seemed to continue.
Question: What’s it meant to be the guy who
once had to tell listeners Virginia was the first No.
1 seed to lose to a No. 16 seed, then a year later be
the first to say, “The Virginia Cavaliers are the na-
tional champions of college basketball?”
Answer: Surreal.
I think the biggest emotion that I had through-
out this whole process was one of gratitude. I re-
ally, truly mean that. For me, as a storyteller, to
tell this story is one of the great gifts I’ll ever have
in my life.
Because it’s the ultimate story.
Obviously, I wanted this for the team, who had
been through what they had. I wanted it desper-
ately for Tony Bennett, who I hold on a pedestal
and have since he arrived here. In a lot of ways, I
consider him a mentor to me and someone who
can provide a lot of inspiration in a lot of facets
in life. For people like that, you want good things,
and he’s so deserving, and I was so very happy for
that.
But for selfish reasons, I was incredibly grateful
for the chance I had to play a role in this thing in
bringing it to life on the radio. This is what we do
for a living, we tell stories. And I was gifted with
one of the greatest stories in the history of sports
to tell.
RICHMOND TIMES-DISPATCH
I am not ashamed to admit it; I cried on March 16,
2018. That was the night that our Virginia Cava-
liers suffered one of the most humiliating defeats
not only in the history of college basketball but
also in sports in general when they lost to UMBC
in the first round of the tournament. These were
good, respectable players coached by a man of
impeccable integrity and my sadness was over
what they were enduring and would endure over
the succeeding days and months. As expected, the
ridicule came: “Good guys finish last… Coach Ben-
nett’s system can’t win the big games… his players
choke when it counts” and on and on. Yet immedi-
ately after that crushing defeat, Coach Bennett and
his players immediately demonstrated poise and
grace in their post-game press conference and took
full responsibility for the loss.
After the season was over, Kyle Guy shared his
battles with depression and how he first appeared
back on campus in a hoodie. The negative impact
of social media and the criticism of the pundits
was crushing yet with Tony Bennett’s encourage-
ment, he and the rest of the team embraced the loss
and set their sights on the next season. Guy also
publicly encouraged his peers to get help and not
cover depression and anxiety despite the stigmas
that still exist in our society.
As the new season approached, I had the op-
portunity to meet the new UVA Athletic Director
Carla Williams, on a warm August evening at an
event in Charlottesville put on by the University
for current and prospective corporate sponsors.
While our company was small in comparison to
many corporate sponsors, I told Ms. Williams
that we were definitely going to support Virginia
basketball and connect our brand to the values
Tony Bennett had put in play. It was obvious she
was in full support of the faith and philosophy of
Coach Bennett and we both believed that in time a
championship would come UVA’s way.
It is one thing to live any set of principles when the
winds of success are behind you. Yet throughout
2018-19 as the UMBC loss was brought up in every
game and in virtually every press conference, Tony
Bennett and his team stated they were not trying to
bury the last season but rather use the Five Pillars
that Coach Bennett had built the program on. They
would use the first Pillar of Humility and talk ev-
ery day about the loss and embrace it. After every
win the word “thankful” was used consistent with
the next pillar of Gratitude. Servanthood and Unity
were exhibited as playing times were adjusted and
roles changed to meet the demands of the season.
Paid Advertisement
Then, all America saw the pillar of Passion demon-
strated in game after game in the tournament.
I was fortunate to be able to attend all but a hand-
ful of Virginia’s home basketball games. Witness-
ing the anxiety present in the Colonial Life Arena
in Columbia, SC and then seeing the Cavaliers
grab a first-round tournament win after trailing
Gardner-Webb by 14 points was gratifying. Work
demands and travel made the next opportunity
to see this magical team appear on Monday night
in Minneapolis. I booked the trip a week out with
confidence Virginia would be there. They did not
disappoint.
As the confetti rained down on us in US Bank
Stadium in Minneapolis on Monday night, I
was moved by the scene. This was not merely a
masterful execution of 40 minutes (scratch that,
45 minutes) of basketball by Coach Bennett, his
assistants and the Virginia players at the pinnacle
of collegiate sports. This was the final page of an
incredible life script, replete with lessons we all can
benefit from. The Five Pillars that were prominent
in the devastating rubble of the UMBC loss now
stood in the gleaming spotlight of the grandest
prize in college basketball.
There was exuberant joy in the voices and the faces
of former players such as Devon Hall, Justin An-
derson, Joe Harris, Malcom Brogdon, Sean Single-
tary, Harold Deane, Cory Alexander and of course
iconic Ralph Sampson. The last Virginia coach to
reach the semi-finals, Terry Holland, stood look-
ing on the celebration with the dignified pride of
a parent whose child’s successes have eclipsed
their own. Could the presence of the Five Pillars
and therefore the lack of chest-thumping hubris
that normally accompanies such celebrations be
credited for the lack of envy or jealousy in former
players and coaches?
Prior to winning the National Championship,
Tony Bennett said, “If my life is just about winning
championships—if it’s just about being the best—
then I’m running the wrong race,” he said. “That’s
empty. But if it’s about trying to be excellent and
do things the right way, to honor the university
that’s hired you, the athletic director you work
for and the young men you’re coaching—always
in the process trying to bring glory to God—then
that’s the right thing. Paul said he considered all
the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus
his Lord,” Bennett said.
• • • SUNDAY, APRIL 14, 2019 U5
DEAN HOFFMEYER/TIMES-DISPATCH
CLOCKWISE FROM ABOVE:
Mamadi Diakite (25)
celebrates in the moments
after UVA’s victory in the
title game; Diakite blocks
a Texas Tech shot, one
of three UVA blocks on
Monday; De’Andre Hunter
drives to the basket
against Jarrett Culver. The
two projected NBA first-
round picks had several
showdowns in the final
minutes of the game.
April 14, 2019
Adversity is a fact of life and our society seems to
be struggling in epic proportions in handling it. As
we see leader after leader in sports, politics, busi-
ness and even in religious circles meltdown under
the scrutiny of public life, Coach Tony Bennett has
provided a tutorial on living out practical faith and
achieving success without abandoning principles.
In addition to the Five Pillars, we have been given
such enduring phrases as “trembling courage”, a
“painful gift” and “adversity can buy a ticket to
a place you couldn’t have gone any other way.”
Add in Clemson football Coach Dabo Swinney’s
text to Coach Bennett on Monday of “Let the light
that shines in you, shine brighter than the light
that shines on you” and you have an outline for
outstanding leadership.
I believe that we have created such a sharp divide
in America between the sacred and the secular that
many of our institutions are rudderless. I identify
with the struggle to incorporate faith into my daily
life as a business owner. I work hard to walk out
my faith, in all areas of my life, in a way that al-
lows room for others with different perspectives.
Too often it seems that individuals or organiza-
tions have values, pillars or a mission statement
that are just words to be said and not applied. If
our values are only demonstrated in the triumphs
and not the trials, are they really life principles or
just empty words?
Years ago, the poet Edgar Guest said:
I’d rather see a sermon than hear one any day;
I’d rather one should walk with me than
merely tell the way.
The eye’s a better pupil and more willing than
the ear,
Fine counsel is confusing, but example’s al-
ways clear;
And the best of all the preachers are the men
who live their creeds,
For to see good put in action is what every-
body needs.
Seeing Humility, Passion, Unity, Servanthood and
Thankfulness put in action; this is the takeaway for
me over the last year as a UVA fan and sponsor,
as a business owner and as a Christian. Thank you
President
The Good Feet Store of Virginia, Maryland and DC
U6 Sunday, april 14, 2019 • • • richmond TimeS-diSpaTch

V I R G I N I A CAVA L I E R S
2019 NCAA MEN’S BASKETBALL NATIONAL CHAMPIONS

DeAN hoffMeYeR/TiMes-DisPATch
The Virginia Cavaliers have been fielding basketball teams for 115 years, but this was the school’s first NCAA championship in the sport.

UVA basketball team

UVA’s NCAA national
championship teams
1938 — Boxing
1972 — men’s lacrosse

becomes the school’s 26th

1981 — Women’s cross country
1982 — Women’s cross country
1989 — men’s soccer
1991 — men’s soccer and women’s lacrosse

NCAA team champion

By MICHAEL PHILLIPS • richmond Times-dispatch
There has been a tradition of
winning at Virginia in all sports
for many years, and the men’s
basketball team is the latest to join
the club of NCAA team champions.
Just as the weight was lifted
from coach Tony Bennett’s shoul-
ders on Monday night in Minne-
apolis, he’s among good company
in Charlottesville — baseball
coach Brian O’Connor similarly
toiled for years before winning the
2015 title, and tennis coach Brian
Boland had what was regarded as
the nation’s best team for nearly
a half decade before he broke
through.
They, and other Cavaliers
coaches, offered Bennett their sup-
port in the run-up to the title.
“You can tell they’ve been
through it,” Bennett said, not-
ing that their text messages all
came with the caveat: “No need to
reply,” aware of how busy Bennett
and his team were.
“They’ve been through it. The
support you have — [women’s
basketball coach] Debbie Ryan,
when she was there, Joanne Boyle
from the women’s program, now
Tina [Thompson], Brian O’Connor,
1992 — men’s soccer
1993 — men’s soccer and women’s lacrosse
1994 — men’s soccer
1999 — men’s lacrosse
2003 — men’s lacrosse
2004 — Women’s lacrosse
2006 — men’s lacrosse
[former men’s soccer coach Bruce] 2009 — men’s soccer
Arena, all down the list, I can name 2010 — Women’s rowing
them all, all the coaches. It’s a 2011 — men’s lacrosse
close-knit family at UVA because I 2012 — Women’s lacrosse
think we appreciate how it has to
2013 — men’s tennis
be done there, but there’s so many
great coaches there. 2014 — men’s soccer
“I remember when I got the job, 2015 — Baseball and men’s tennis
I said, ‘What’s the key to building 2016 — men’s tennis
a program?’ And I listened to them
2017 — men’s tennis
intently about finding guys that fit
your system, your culture, and the 2019 — men’s basketball
culture of UVA.” Note: This does not count individual titles in sports like
mphillips@timesdispatch.com track or swimming, or titles that were given by non-
(804) 649-6546 NCAA organizations, like UVA’s indoor tennis titles or
@michaelpRTD their 1952 and 1970 lacrosse titles

The AssociATeD PRess

P. KeViN MoRLeY/TiMes-DisPATch ANDRew shuRTLeff/The DAiLY PRoGRess

MARK GoRMus/TiMes-DisPATch P. KeViN MoRLeY/TiMes-DisPATch

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: Kenny Towns lifts the UVA baseball team’s championship trophy at a rally in 2015; Virginia goalie Andrea Pfeiffer (11) receives the MVP
award at the women’s lacrosse championship; Men’s tennis coach Brian Boland poses with the team’s three national championship trophies; Rob Emery kisses the
NCAA lacrosse championship trophy as he and teammates celebrate; Richmond’s Todd Wharton (no shirt) and teammates celebrate their College Cup title.
Richmond Times-dispaTch • • • sunday, apRil 14, 2019 U7

Hitting the right notes

without De’Andre Hunter and per-
haps Ty Jerome, who could soon
announce that they’re going pro.
But the Cavaliers have shown they
can sustain a program through the

For the Cavaliers, the night of the title game both
started and finished with ‘One Shining Moment’
Aaron McFarling
aaron.mcfarling@roanoke.com
He learned it in 15 minutes.
Francesco Badocchi scored 5
points for the Virginia basketball
team this season and played a total
of one minute in this NCAA tour-
nament. But in the spirit of “differ-
ent guys at different times” — one
of the mantras of this program —
the freshman forward from Italy
contributed something special
Monday morning, long before the
Cavaliers tipped off in the national
title game.
He taught himself to play “One
Shining Moment” on the piano.
And before the team’s walk-
through, Badocchi performed it for
his teammates.
“When we’re on the road, we let
him play the piano, just something
as a team thing, just to take our
minds off of basketball,” associate
head coach Jason Williford said.
“I don’t know if that was a pre-
monition, but he was freaking
good, and it was good to hear that
thing.”
The Cavaliers would hear it
again, of course. Shortly after mid-
night on Tuesday morning, after
their 85-77 overtime victory against
Texas Tech that brought them
their first national title, they stood
on the platform at midcourt and
watched the annual NCAA tourna-
ment highlights package together
on the big screen at U.S. Bank
Stadium.
“When you’re a kid, you’re
ChARlie NeibeRgAll/The AssoCiATed pRess
Virginia’s Francesco Badocchi is one
of a number of foreign-born players
on the team. He is proficient at both
shooting a basketball and playing the
piano, and did both at the Final Four.
watching the championship, and
everyone watches ‘One Shining
Moment,’” forward Braxton Key
said. “Whether you’re watching the
game or not, you go on YouTube
and type in ‘One Shining Moment,’
you want to watch. It’s so senti-
mental. It’s surreal that we were
able to watch it.”
Even more surreal that the video
would end with images of coach
Tony Bennett slapping the Vir-
ginia sticker on the final line of the
bracket and the Cavaliers hoisting
the trophy in a sea of confetti.
Perhaps no team has better em-
bodied the joy-pain dichotomy
that video promotes than these
Cavaliers. From the misery of last
year’s UMBC loss to the ecstasy of
Monday night, UVA was a model
of resiliency and competitive
brilliance.
“Put your arms around each
other,” Bennett recalls telling his
players in the postgame locker
room. “Take a look at every guy in
here. Look at each other. Prom-
ise me you will remain humble
and thankful for this. Don’t let this
change you. It doesn’t have to.
“But stay humble and stay
thankful. It’s a great story. That’s
probably the best way I can end
this: It’s a great story.”
Oh, you bet it was. All of it. Fall-
ing behind by 14 points against
16th-seeded Gardner-Webb. Need-
ing a miracle at the end of regula-
tion to fend off Purdue. Snatching
an improbable victory from Au-
burn in the national semifinals.
And then Monday, twice build-
ing a double-digit lead and losing
it, then coming back again.
Boring old Virginia? No sir.
“I love the way we play,” Wil-
liford said. “We’re not going to
apologize for that. I heard it all:
You couldn’t win. You can’t recruit
guys. You’re not going to go to the
pros. Well, guess what? We’re the
national champions. We’re going
to keep doing what we do.”
They’ll probably have to do it
loss of talented players.
Evidence was on hand here
Monday, as ex-UVA stars such as
Justin Anderson, Malcolm Brogdon
and Devon Hall showed up to
celebrate a historic night for the
university.
If this was indeed Hunter’s last
game, as most of us assume it was,
it was a cinematic finish. Hunter
scored 22 of his career-high 27
points after halftime, hitting the
game-tying 3-pointer late in regu-
lation and the go-ahead 3-pointer
in overtime.
“He was unbelievable tonight,
in all areas of the game,” Jerome
said. “He held [Jarrett] Culver to 5
of 22 shooting, who’s an awesome
player. He’ll be a lottery pick. He
was a beast on the glass. He was a
beast on the defensive end, guard-
ing the ball. He hit 3s. He got and-
1s at the rim.
“Every single thing someone can
do on the court, tonight, he did.”
Kyle Guy, the Final Four’s Most
Outstanding Player honoree, con-
tributed 24 points. The symbol of
Virginia’s one-year turnaround
shook off early shooting struggles
in this tournament to made a slew
of huge plays in Minneapolis.
“We came in together and said
that we’re going to win a national
championship,” Guy said of a re-
cruiting class that included Jerome,
Hunter and Jay Huff. “And to be
able to hug each other with confetti
going everywhere and say we did it,
it’s the greatest feeling I’ve ever felt
in basketball.”
Safe to say it was for all of them.
“My favorite moment? When
the horns went off and we were
champion,” Mamadi Diakite said.
“Going back and thinking about
all the plays, all the hard work it
took in order to get here, it was
amazing.
“I was on that stage like, ‘Wow,
we’re really champions.’”
Then came the video, with the
song Badocchi had played so well.
Aaron McFarling is the sports columnist for
the Roanoke Times.

Defying the odds

The Wahoos appeared to be
sunk three times, and three
times emerged as the victor
By MICHAEL PHILLIPS • Richmond Times-dispatch
$)%/ 1!#"0!#"+&( '.*-,
On the road to a national title, of the game, how often the team #*)( %!'. -(. -(.+!" -.$,(
there is often an incredible come- in that situation wins. @BA .aK,G PS)?;?8 I RHD-H?=)AL 6@[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[*&G
back, a game where the winning Certain leads have never @BA ,,KQHW * 2)YH? P2#) RCD) 3=HA 3=H=)8[[[[[[[[[[[[J.aa&
QHW .K( @__ @FC;= @=_HD=H[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[JJ$a&
team has to overcome long odds. been overcome before — those
QHW "K.G 2;_!B Z)?=!9H_ I VC__HD+L Q!-#!%HD[[[[[[[[[[JJ"&G
For Virginia, there were three. leads have a 100 percent win QHW "K.G <HB) QHW O)\ S)A?)W[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[JJJ"a&
“All those close games and all probability. A tie game tradi- QHW .bK,$ >AHD?CD I @E)A!-H5? Q;?!- 3#C\ <HB!=H_.[[[[[[[("&
the practices where we practice tionally carries a 50 percent win QHW .aK," >H?)FH__ I 2)YH? 3=H+!;E?[[[[[[[[[[[[[JJJ.(,&
late-game situations, we tried probability for each team. S;D) .Kb <H?=_)?L <HB!=C_?L <C;D=AW?!+)[[[[[[[[[[[JJJJ.""&
to execute, and we’re very dis- In each of the Cavaliers’ final S;D) aK.& Z_CA!+H5? O] 3#CA) I @E)_!H T?_HD+[[[[[[[[[[aa&
ciplined, and I think that got us three games, their win percent- S;_W *Kb >H?)FH__ I ZC;A=# C' S;_W I <#!-H%C I QO[[[[[[[J..a&
through a lot of games,” said age dipped into the single digits S;_W &K,G @_H?`H ^ <HDH+H Z_W I RHD+ [[[[[[[[[[[[J(aa&
S;_W $K,, <HDWCD_HD+? I 7;A QC?= 3-)D!- 2C;A[[[[[[[[JJJ,ba&
Kyle Guy. in the final seconds of two of the
S;_W $K@;% ( @_H?`H ^ <HDH+H5? N;`CD FW QC=CA-CH-#[[[[[[JJ&&a&
ESPN’s win probability tool games, and went dangerously S;_W *GK@;% * @E!?# @-A)? Z)?=!9H_ I OHBHD))L TD+!HDH[[[[[[[[$b&
estimates, at any given moment low on Monday night. @;% ,K& P2#) <ACC`)+ 4CH+8 I 0!A%!D!H Q;?!- 2AH!_[[[[[[JJ$,&
@;% &K,$ 3HD ZAHD-!?-CL <@ I 6H-!'!- OCA=#\)?=[[[[[[[[JJ*.a&
@;% .G 2HD%!)A T?_HD+[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[.GG
Elite Eight vs. Purdue, 5 seconds left @;% ,GK,( /!?-CD?!D I 4H-!D) I Q!_\H;`))[[[[[[[[[[[JJJb,&
@;% ,( Q;?);E C' =#) >!F_) I /H?#!D%=CD :<[[[[[[[[JJJ,GG
UVA win probability: 8 percent @;% ,bK*. 6!%)CD ZCA%) I XH=_!DF;A%[[[[[[[[[[[[[["a&
3)B= .K* 3HD+? <H?!DC ^ 4)?CA= I >)=#_)#)EL 6@[[[[[[[[J,a&
Down by 3 points, the Cavaliers weren’t in a great situation, but 3)B= $Kb 7#!C @E!?# <C;D=AW[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[&,&
they weren’t yet sunk. But after Ty Jerome got fouled, giving him 7-= .,K.$ M O!H%HAH ZH__? I 2CACD=C[[[[[[[[[[[[[[Jb,&
just two shots at the line, the Wahoos’ chances of winning the game 7-= ."K,. OH?#9!__) I PQ;?!- <!=W 13@8[[[[[[[[[[[JJ",&
plummeted to 8 percent. OC9 .(K." >!_=ECA) I 3EC`W QC;D=H!D <#A!?=EH?[[[[[[[[JJ""&
After making the first, Jerome unintentionally missed the sec- OC9 ,"K*G QH-W5? 2#HD`?%!9!D% :HW 6HAH+)[[[[[[[[[[J.*,&
ond. Mamadi Diakite tapped the rebound to a sprinting Kihei Clark, OC9 *GK:)- b >AHD?CDL Q7 I 7UHA` <#A!?=EH?[[[[[[[[[[JJ.(&G
who kicked it back to Diakite for one of the most iconic shots of the :)- .K( <#A!?=EH? QW?=)AW[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[JJJ$a&
tournament. :)- (Kb <#HA_)?=CD I 3H9HDDH# I <#A!?=EH?=!E)[[[[[[[[Ja"&
:)- &K" PQ!AH-_) C' <#A!?=EH?8 I RHD-H?=)AL 6@[[[[[[[[&,&
:)- &Ka OCAEHD 4C-`\)__ <#A!?=EH?[[[[[[[[[[[[JJ"a&
:)- &Ka OH?#9!__) I <C;D=AW <#A!?=EH? I 7BAW_HD+[[[[[[JJ.,"&
Final Four vs. Auburn, 2 seconds left :)- $Kb O)\ NCA` I 4H+!C <!=W <#A!?=EH? 3#C\[[[[[[[JJ.."&
UVA win probability: 7 percent :)- aK., <#A!?=EH? !D <HB) QHW[[[[[[[[[[[[[[JJJ",&
:)- .,K.$ OH?#9!__) I <C;D=AW <#A!?=EH? I 7BAW_HD+[[[[[[JJ.,"&
Auburn’s lack of fouls during the second half came in handy for :)- .*K.& QWA=_) >)H-# I <#A!?=EH?[[[[[[[[[[[[[[(&G
the Tigers, as they were able to twice foul UVA and stop the Cavs’ :)- .*K.& O)\ NCA` I 4H+!C <!=W <#A!?=EH? 3#C\[[[[[[[JJ.."&
momentum, turning 7 seconds of time into less than 2 seconds. :)- ,$K*. Z_CA!+H I <#A!?=EH? H= :!?D)W\CA_+[[[[[[[[[JJ.,a&
Down by 2, the ensuing play went to Guy, who was fouled by
Samir Doughty while attempting a 3-point shot. Guy made all three
free throws, and Virginia advanced.

Title game vs. Texas Tech, 22 seconds left

UVA win probability: 24 percent
Texas Tech’s Norense Odiase made a pair of free throws to push
the Red Raiders’ lead to 3 points with less than a shot clock’s worth of
time left.
De’Andre Hunter answered, though, with a 3-pointer of his own.
Braxton Key then blocked a Jarrett Culver jump shot, and the game
was off to overtime
In the extra session, the Cavaliers secured the national title by
making all 12 of their free-throw attempts. With UVA up six, it was
Braxton Key who slammed down an emphatic dunk, ensuring that it
would be the Cavs cutting down the nets.
4>!+'< <"ATB E>' %A> 7A8DV' J* :A E 1AACI 5++8@EB+QF 28E) J& :A E 1AACI EB) />!@V' J( :A E 1AACI 5++8@EB+Q !< =6E!VEDV'
E: E 0V!#":VQ NAT'> 4'> 4'><AB 4>!+'F 0!B#V' J, :A E 1AACI !< EV<A E6E!VEDV' E: E 0V!#":VQ P!#"'> 4'> 4'><AB 4>!+'F =VV /A8><
OB+V8)' 1A8B):>!@ />EB<@A>:E:!AB DQ MA)'>BH =!>G9AB)!:!AB')H 7-7 EB) 1'<:>AAC U?8!@@') 7'V8R' MA:A>+AE+"H PA:'V
=++ACCA)E:!AB< EB) =)C!<<!AB :A :"' N!<:') =::>E+:!AB<F ;E##E#' PEB)V!B# !< @>A6!)') E: 'E+" B!#":3< VA)#!B# E< !B)!+E:')
!B :"' +E:EVA#& 9EB+'VVE:!AB OB<8>EB+' !< L5/ 1U2.O1U7 AB EBQ 08B<"!B' :A8>H E< T' T!VV 1US.L7 =NN 4=KMUL/0
JSNK /1O40 &$G7=K0 41O51 /5 7U4=1/.1UI !% QA8 %!B) !: B'+'<<E>Q :A +EB+'V QA8> >'<'>6E:!AB =/ =LK /OMU D'%A>'
:"' :A8> V'E6'<F
&( $/& .+0#%, -"* )!' 8B0?"A8 8:B<CD ':H 4>> C:AHD >BDC*,(
D;391;.1- 0#3&5.;;)$7!55)- H!/#2.1+
JH!/#2.1+ :<>= JJ D;391;.1 :<>= JJJ H!/#2.1+ G 0#3&5.;;)$7!55) :<>=
':H 4 'H** 04C4>:E 04>> C:>> 'H**( I"LKK"@@F"KKFF
666%E.D91$#!1)C.9&$%/.2
U8 SUNDAY, APRIL 14, 2019 • • • RICHMOND TIMES-DISPATCH RICHMOND TIMES-DISPATCH • • • SUNDAY, APRIL 14, 2019 U9

V I R G I N I A CAVA L I E R S
2019 NCAA MEN’S BASKETBALL NATIONAL CHAMPIONS

Dean Hoffmeyer/Times-DispaTcH

‘ THIS IS FOR YOU ’

With 14 seconds remaining in overtime, UVA led by 6 points, and Texas Tech was hoping for a late comeback. Instead, Ty Jerome found
Braxton Key all alone on an inbounds pass, and Key threw in a thunderous dunk. “Say goodnight,” commentator Bill Raftery said on the
CBS broadcast, and indeed, the Cavaliers would coast from there to their first men’s basketball national title. Once the confetti had fallen
and the trophy had been awarded, Key went into the stands and greeted his second cousin, UVA hoops legend Ralph Sampson. Key said he
dedicated the performance to Sampson, whose UVA teams were among the nation’s best, but never won the ultimate prize.
U10 SUNDAY, APRIL 14, 2019 • • • RICHMOND TIMES-DISPATCH

V I R G I N I A CAVA L I E R S
2019 NCAA MEN’S BASKETBALL NATIONAL CHAMPIONS

Meet the team

UVA’s 2019
championship roster
and coaches

No. 5, Kyle Guy
Junior, guard, 6-2, 175
pounds
2019 stats: 15.4 points, 4.5
rebounds and 2.1 assists per
game
Need to know: Kyle Guy was
Mr. Basketball Indiana and
spurned in-state basketball
powers like Butler, Indiana
and Purdue when stuck by his
commitment to Bennett and
UVA. A dead-eye shooter, Guy
ranks first all-time at Virginia in
3-point field percentage (42.5).
Postseason moment: Hit
three straight free throws with
.6 seconds on the clock to beat
Auburn, 63-62, in the national
semifinal game.
No. 11, Ty Jerome
Junior, guard, 6-5, 195 pounds
2019 stats: 13.6 points, 4.2 rebounds
and 5.5 assists per game
Need to know: Like teammate
De’Andre Hunter, many project Je-
rome could be a first-round pick in the
upcoming NBA draft if he chooses to
leave school early. If he opts to return,
he could finish in the top 5 all-time at
Virginia in assists.
Postseason moment: His free
throw miss against Purdue began
the wild tip play that led to Diakite’s
game tying basket, but Jerome was
too good in the NCAA tournament to
make that his shining moment. He
averaged 20.3 points, 6.7 rebounds
and seven assists per game over the
Cavaliers’ final three wins. His pass to
Hunter for the game-tying 3-pointer
in the national title game was one ex-
ample of his stellar play.
No. 12, De’Andre
Hunter
Sophomore, forward, 6-7, 225
pounds
2019 stats: 15.2 points, 5.1 rebounds
and two assists per game
Need to know: Hunter redshirted two
years ago then sat out last year’s NCAA
tournament loss to UMBC with a wrist
injury. Now, he’s likely headed to the NBA
draft, considered a potential lottery pick
by most experts. Virginia hasn’t had a
player picked in the top 10 of the draft
since Olden Polynice in 1987.
Postseason moment: Hunter’s
3-pointer with 14 seconds left in the
national title game against Texas Tech
forced overtime. Jerome flung a cross-
court pass to Hunter, camped out for a
corner 3 and Hunter buried it, erasing a
3-point deficit and sending the Cavaliers
to overtime, where they would win the
championship.
No. 25, Mamadi
Diakite
Junior, forward, 6-9, 228 pounds
2019 stats: 7.4 points, 4.4 re-
bounds and 1.7 blocks per game
Need to know: A native of Guinea,
Diakite came to the United States
as a 16-year-old, to play basketball
at the Blue Ridge School in hopes of
earning a college scholarship and,
eventually, a shot at playing profes-
sionally in the NBA. He hopes to use
a future NBA contract to help his
impoverished home country.
Postseason moment: Diakite’s
buzzer-beating 12-foot jumper
against Purdue sent the Elite Eight
game into overtime, a miracle play
that saved UVA’s postseason and
put Diakite, Clark and Jerome per-
manently into NCAA tournament
lore.

Coaches:
Tony Bennett
Head coach
Background: The son of former Wis- No. 1, Francesco No. 10, Jayden Nixon
consin and Washington State coach Badocchi Freshman, guard, 6-3, 189 pounds
Dick Bennett, Tony Bennett led Virginia Redshirt freshman, forward, 6-7, 2019 stats: Eight rebounds and eight
to its first Final Four since 1984 and
first 205 pounds points in 14 games
fi rst-ever national title in his 10th sea-
first-ever
son in Charlottesville. His Pack-Line 2019 stats: 13 points and two re-
defense again led the nation in few- bounds in nine games
est points allowed per game and his
scheme adjustments on the other end
of the fl oor made the Cavaliers’ one
floor
of the country’s most effi
effi-- Jason
cient offenses. Williford
Associate head
coach
Background: A
Richmond native and
former John Marshall
high school star,
Williford played at
UVA, going to three
NCAA tournaments
and winning an NIT
championship before
graduating in 1995.
He was an assistant
for nine years for
Bennett before being
promoted before this
season.
RICHMOND TIMES-DISPATCH • • • SUNDAY, APRIL 14, 2019 U11

No. 30, Jay Huff
Sophomore, forward, 7-1, 222
pounds
2019 stats: 4.4 points, 2.1 rebounds
and .7 blocks per game
Need to know: A Durham, N.C. na-
tive, Huff grew up a Duke basketball
fan. His father worked at the Mike
Krzyzewski Human Performance Lab
at Duke and the Blue Devils recruited
Huff. He chose to play, instead, at
Virginia.
Postseason moment: Huff didn’t
play much in the NCAA tournament,
but he did score 5 points and block
a shot in the second-round win over
Oklahoma.
No. 33, Jack Salt
Senior, center, 6-10, 250-pounds
2019 stats: 3.7 points and 3.7 re-
bounds per game
Need to know: A New Zealand na-
tive, where he won back-to-back
national high school championships,
Salt traveled some 8,500 miles to
become a fixture in the UVA lineup,
before a balky back limited his avail-
ability at times this season.
Postseason moment: Salt scored
a career-high 18 points against
North Carolina State in the ACC
tournament to help Virginia win its
first game in Charlotte.
No. 2, Braxton Key
Junior, forward, 6-8, 225 pounds
2019 stats: 5.7 points, 5.3 rebounds
and one assist per game
Need to know: An Alabama trans-
fer, Key was granted a waiver by the
NCAA to play this season. He is the
nephew of former Virginia legend
Ralph Sampson.
Postseason moment: Key’s de-
fense on Texas Tech star Jarrett
Culver on the final shot of regulation
in the championship game may have
saved Virginia’s title hope. Key par-
tially blocked Culver’s tightly-con-
tested jumper at the buzzer, sending
the game into overtime.
No. 0, Kihei Clark
Freshman, guard, 5-9, 155
pounds
2019 stats: 4.5 points, 2.6 assists
per game
Need to know: A pesky, aggressive
on-ball defender, coach Tony Ben-
nett frequently compared Clark to
Muggsy Bogues, Bennett’s team-
mate in the NBA with the Charlotte
Hornets. The 5-foot-3 Bogues was
the shortest player in NBA history.
Postseason moment: Threw the
pass to Mamadi Diakite for the
game-tying basket to force overtime
against Purdue in the Elite Eight.

No. 22, Francisco No. 23, Kody No. 24, Marco No. 45, Austin
Caffaro Stattmann Anthony Katstra
Freshman, center, 7-0, 223 pounds Freshman, guard, 6-7, 187 pounds Sophomore, guard, 6-4, 212 Sophomore, forward, 6-6, 217
2019 stats: Redshirted 2019 stats: 30 points and 11 re- pounds pounds
bounds in 18 games 2019 stats: 26 points and 12 re- 2019 stats: 10 points and six re-
bounds in 22 games bounds in 11 games

Brad Orlando Mike Curtis

Soderberg Vandross Strength and condi-
Assistant coach Assistant coach tioning coach
Background: A Background: Background: A
former Dick Bennett Vandross worked Richmond native
assistant, and a head for three years as and former standout
coach at St. Louis Virginia’s director at Manchester High
and interim head of recruiting/player School, Curtis was
coach at Wisconsin, development, before a college teammate
Soderberg has spent earning a promotion of Jason Williford’s
the past four years at to assistant coach, at UVA. Tony Ben-
Virginia. Soberberg the post he’s held the nett hired him to be
played for Dick Ben- past four seasons. his strength coach
nett at UW-Stevens Before UVA, Vandross 10 years ago, after
Point. spent five years as Curtis spent a year
an assistant at Char- at Michigan and six
lotte and 13 on staff years with the Mem-
at Boston University. phis Grizzlies in the
NBA.

DEAN HOFFMEYER/TIMES-DISPATCH, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

U12 SUNDAY, APRIL 14, 2019 • • •
V I R G I N I A CAVA L I E R S
2019 NCAA MEN’S BASKETBALL NATIONAL CHAMPIONS
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: Virginia guard Kyle Guy (5) tries to calm forward Mamadi Diakite during the Purdue game; Virginia coach Tony Bennett and assistant Jason
Williford react during the Oregon game; Virginia guard Ty Jerome speaks to the media after Virginia’s 53-49 win over Oregon to advance to the Elite Eight; Virginia guard
De’Andre Hunter (12) grabs a loose ball from Purdue forward Grady Eifert; Hunter splits two Oregon defenders in the paint during the Sweet 16 game.
It took a village
to win this trophy
Michael Phillips
mphillips@TimesDispatch.com
When the former president of
the university ends up seated in the
14th row, you know it’s a hot ticket.
The University of Virginia was
given 3,600 tickets behind the
team’s bench for Monday night’s
national championship game, and
it seemed like every single one of
those people had a personal con-
nection to the program.
That’s what made the Cavaliers’
title so special. It was won by 13
players, but there were hundreds
more who played a part.
Former players, coaches and
family members packed the stands,
lingering deep into the night. Min-
nesota is known as the Land of
10,000 Lakes, but they’re going
to need to recount after Monday
night’s waterworks.
“When I hugged my mom and
dad and my brother, they were cry-
ing, so I couldn’t help it,” said Ty
Jerome.
He wasn’t the only one who shed
a tear. This was a group that left
people searching for superlatives.
“They were a joy to coach,”
said Tony Bennett. “I mean, they
worked, and anything I said, ‘Yes,
sir.’ They would just go after it. We
pushed them hard, but we also
loved on them too, and I think it
was the balance of that, and they
knew it. And they knew we were in
this together.”
Zion Williamson was the best
player in college basketball this
year. UVA had the tightest-knit
team.
That extends to the coaching
staff, too. Jason Williford, a John
Marshall grad, has been with Ben-
nett as an assistant for all 10 years.
He could have left for better op-
portunities elsewhere, but has re-
mained loyal to the program.
“I don’t even know how we
did it,” said Williford, shaking his
head in disbelief. “These guys are
incredible.
“Ten years ago, Tony gave me a
shot. I’m just happy he gave me a
RICHMOND TIMES-DISPATCH
ZACK WAJSGRAS/THE DAILY PROGRESS
shot. I’m loving this place. I bleed
orange and blue.”
Strength coach Mike Curtis, a
Manchester grad, was similarly
speechless.
“Everything in the past 10 years
was in pursuit of this,” Curtis said.
“I’m just thankful that Tony gave
me the opportunity to come back to
Virginia and be a part of this.”
Former assistant Ritchie McKay,
now the coach at Liberty, brought
his family and was embraced
warmly on the court after the game.
Most importantly, Tony Ben-
nett’s father, Dick Bennett, was in
attendance behind the bench — he
stays away from most games be-
cause the nerves are too much.
Monday night, confetti fell on him
while he watched his son hoist the
trophy.
Dick Bennett has been a constant
presence around the team from the
start, the patriarch of a defensive
dynasty that is finally getting its due.
Ultimately, the adversity along
the way only made the finish that
much sweeter.
Most people point to UMBC, but
I believe the die was cast against
Tony Bennett and his system at the
2011 ACC tournament, when they
led Miami by 10 points with 42 sec-
onds left, and squandered the lead.
The Syracuse loss in the Elite
Eight in 2016 only cemented the
reputation, but inside the building,
Bennett and his team knew they
had something special brewing.
As the talent level rose, so did the
results. Then, finally, Kyle Guy and
teammates broke through.
Guy’s unflappable demeanor
was exactly what UVA needed
to navigate the gauntlet that was
thrown the Wahoos way during this
postseason.
“I’m just thinking this is a dream
come true, and it’s even more
than that because you never even
imagine you’ll be able to spend
a year with people you actually
love, your teammates and your
coaches,” Jerome said. “Not a lot
of people get along like we do, so
to share this moment with them is
unbelievable.”
Bennett’s family grows every
year, and there was barely enough
room for all of them on the court
Monday night, a group celebrating
the conclusion of a quest a decade
in the making.
RICHMOND TIMES-DISPATCH • • • SUNDAY, APRIL 14, 2019 U13

“It’s just kind of a legacy [my

dad] left behind. They’re just
such a guide for us, and they
help us and help me a lot, so
they started way back then.
I know he’s passed those on
to some other teams, some
real good teams have
used those, and I think
obviously they’re bigger
than just basketball,
but they help us on the
basketball court and
of course after.”
— Tony Bennett

DEAN HOFFMEYER/TIMES-DISPATCH

Life lessons
carry around.”
Legendary college bas-
ketball coach Dick Bennett
first wrote down his “Five
Non-Negotiables” more
He said he wants the pil-
lars to be an active topic of
conversation instead of a
poster on the wall.
“We refer to them —
UVA coach Tony Bennett
appreciates that the ‘Five
Pillars’ are grounded in
Biblical teachings. He
learned them from his

‘Five Pillars’ guide the than 30 years ago, stress-

ing the five principles to his
they’re not just lip service,”
he said. “After a game we’ll
father, coach Dick Bennett.

Cavaliers on and off the

players. say, ‘Hey, we’re not playing
A young coach named together. We lost our unity.’ the five non-negotiables,
Barry Collier trained under So you can point to break- what he refers to as “the pil-

basketball court Bennett, taking the philoso-

BY MICHAEL PHILLIPS • Richmond Times-Dispatch
This wasn’t the first
March Madness appear-
ance for Virginia coach
Tony Bennett’s program-
guiding philosophy, which
he refers to as the “Five
Pillars.”
The pillars have lived
other lives, on Final Four
runs with Wisconsin, Butler
and George Mason.
For Bennett and the Cav-
aliers, though, the Biblically
derived values of humility,
passion, unity, servanthood
and thankfulness are a bit
more personal: They were
first codified by Dick Ben-
nett, Tony’s father, more
than three decades ago.
Now they’re getting an-
other life with Tony, as he
shared them at press con-
ferences throughout this
year’s run.
Bennett brought the pil-
lars with him to Charlot-
tesville 10 years ago as he
sought to rebuild UVA’s
team.
For Bennett, it’s about
more than basketball.
“You can take it from a
basketball standpoint, but
you can also take it from a
life standpoint, “ Bennett
said in 2014. “They sug-
gest the way we’re trying
to build the program, and
something the guys can
phy with him and rebrand-
ing it as “The Butler Way.”
Likewise, Jim Larranaga
spent time with Bennett
and used the principles at
George Mason and Miami.
Bennett had his own suc-
cess, leading Wisconsin to
the 2000 Final Four. But his
true legacy is in the doz-
ens of assistants who have
learned his non-negotia-
bles, including his son.
“My dad had a strong
faith, “ Tony Bennett said.
“And he said, ‘If my faith is
real to me and important,
then somehow, some way,
I’d like it to play out in my
vocation.’
“There are probably 10
teams that have adopted
that and have it in their
locker room, because they
make sense. They really
do.”
downs after games and also
highlight what went well.
They ground you.”
Tony Bennett didn’t orig-
inally intend to be a coach.
His played at Wisconsin-
Green Bay, where he was
coached by his father. He
still holds the NCAA record
for 3-point percentage in a
career (49.7 percent).
He spent a few years in
the NBA with the Char-
lotte Hornets, then tried to
keep his career alive over-
seas, ultimately landing
in Australia and New Zea-
land, playing for one team
named the Burger King
Kings.
When he returned to the
United States in 1999 and
rejoined his father as an
assistant, he changed his
mind and decided to enter
the family business.
Part of that meant taking
lars,” with him when he set
out on his own at Washing-
ton State and then Virginia.
“It’s just kind of a legacy
[my dad] left behind,” Ben-
nett said. “They’re just such
a guide for us, and they help
us and help me a lot, so
they started way back then.
I know he’s passed those on
to some other teams, some
real good teams have used
those, and I think obviously
they’re bigger than just bas-
ketball, but they help us on
the basketball court and of
course after.
“Like I said, these guys
honor the pillars, that’s the
greatest gift I can have as a
coach, to see them do that,
and I think it’s become ...
part of the fabric of our pro-
gram for sure.”
mphillips@timesdispatch.com
(804) 649-6546
@michaelpRTD

They said it...

Jerome, on the free throw that set up
Diakite’s Purdue shot:
“I short-armed it, and Mamadi did a good
play by hitting it and Kihei [Clark] made the

Quotes from UVA’s run to the NCAA title

AS TOLD TO MIKE BARBER • Richmond Times-Dispatch
Tony Bennett, on rebounding from the
UMBC loss:
“‘If you learn to use it right, the adversity,
it will buy you a ticket to a place you couldn’t
have gone any other way. I didn’t know if that
meant we’d get to a Final Four or do that. I
just knew that would deepen us in ways on
the court, off the court and what we believe
and mark us for the right stuff. And that, I
think, is what took place.”
De’Andre Hunter, after his career high
in the title game:
“I’m really passionate about the game, I’m
just not a screamer or a yeller. I just play my
game, dominate, and if you notice, you no-
tice. If you don’t, you don’t.”
Kyle Guy, on his crucial free throws vs.
Auburn:
“These are moments that every basket-
ball player has dreamed of, hitting the game-
winning shot or free throws. Kind of had that
feeling in your stomach, like a good nervous-
ness, like, ‘All right, this is my chance.’”
Jerome, to New York radio host Mike
Francesa, who said the Cavaliers would
never win the national title playing
their style:
“Our offensive efficiency, I think we were
in the top five in the country, we have been
all year. So, you know, I’m sure a lot of peo-
ple don’t do their proper research on college
basketball before they speak.”
Jerome, on the road to the title, before
the championship game:
“I feel like I get asked this question every
single round, every round we advance, and
every round I say the same thing almost, and
it feels a little bit sweeter, a little bit sweeter.
But to think this time last year we were start-
ing our spring workouts, and to still be play-
ing at this point in the season with one other
team in the whole country on the stage that
you dreamed about since you were a little
kid, it’s an unreal feeling.”
Jerome, on his feelings after the title
win:
“I was about to say don’t ask me because
I can’t yet. Forget last year, this is everything
you dream of since you’re a little kid. I’m not
even thinking about UMBC right now. I’m
just thinking this is a dream come true, and
it’s even more than that because you never
even imagine you’ll be able to spend a year
with people you actually love, your team-
mates and your coaches.
“Not a lot of people get along like we
do, so to share this moment with them is
unbelievable.”
Mamadi Diakite, on his shot in the Pur-
due game to force overtime:
“I took it, and it went in. I was happy and
ready for the next five minutes. I don’t know
how to talk about it. It was unbelievable.
I don’t know how to talk about it. I don’t
know.”
play of the century [by passing to] Mamadi
being ready to shoot.
“Actually, let me add, he looked me off first
or looked Kyle off first and then looked me
off. Then he got to Mamadi over here, and he
made a great play.”
Guy, on the team’s defense-first style:
“We’re not going to compromise on how
we play, but at the same time, our style of
play is just to win. So we can score with the
best in the country, and we can defend with
the best in the country. So whatever it takes
to win is what’s most important.”
Bennett, on Guy’s mental toughness
during games:
“I got a text from Dabo Swinney, who said,
‘Let the light that shines in you be brighter
than the light that shines on you.’ I think he
has something in him.
“I love that quote. I don’t know where
it was, but I thought it was so good, and I
shared it with the guys, and he has some-
thing in big games and makes plays that it’s
just he has it in him.
“I know he’s a young man of faith and he
has great confidence in himself, and he’s
honest, and he’s just got it. He did it again
and made big shots, and I’ve seen that from
— you look at him, and he’s not the most
physical guy, but it’s inside.
“Ty has that in him, and so does Kyle.
De’Andre showed that. De’Andre has all the
ability in the world, and that’s coming, and
Kihei [Clark] has it. I could go down the list,
but that’s what you look for. You take guys
who are tough mentally and skilled and
smart and have enough athleticism, and you
can be really good.”
U14 Sunday, april 14, 2019 • • • richmond TimeS-diSpaTch

V I R G I N I A CAVA L I E R S
2019 NCAA MEN’S BASKETBALL NATIONAL CHAMPIONS

Five memorable moments

In a month full of highlights, these plays stand out
By MIKE BARBER • richmond Times-dispatch

1 2
1
Mamadi Diakite’s shot against Purdue: down two
points with 5.9 seconds to go against the Boilermak-
ers in the elite eight, Virginia forced overtime thanks
to a most unlikely sequence of events. mamadi diakite
tapped Ty Jerome’s missed free throw into the backcourt. Kihei
clark tracked down the ball and fired a long pass to diakite,
who sank a 12-footer at the buzzer to force overtime. it’s a shot
that belongs in the annals of greatest plays in tournament
history.

2
Kyle Guy’s free throws against Auburn: There
were just .6 seconds left on the clock, and uVa trailed
by two points, when Guy was fouled on a 3-point at-
tempt in the corner. Guy had to be the man for the
cavaliers to reach their first ever championship game. and he
was. he calmly sank all three free throws to put Virginia up
63-62. That officials missed an auburn foul on Jerome and Je-
rome’s subsequent double dribble only adds to the drama of
DEAN HOFFMEYER/TIMES-DISPATCH
this play.

3
De’Andre Hunter’s late 3 against Texas Tech: The
road to the title came was fraught with peril — but
things didn’t get any easier on the final monday of
the season. hunter, having a career night, took a pass
from Jerome and with 14 seconds to play and hit a 3-pointer
that tied the game 68-68 and set up the no. 4 play on this list.
5
4
Braxton Key’s defense on the final shot:
hunter’s shot tied the national title game, but there
was still a precious second on the clock. after Texas
Tech coach chris Beard and uVa’s Tony Bennett ex-
changed timeouts, Virginia moved Braxton Key from covering
the inbounds passer to defending Jarrett culver. Key tightly
contested culver’s would-be game-winner, partially blocking
the shot as the buzzer sounded, sending the championship
game to overtime, where the cavaliers would eventually claim
their first title.

5
Hunter’s dunk against Gardner Webb: Virginia’s
run to the title got off to a shaky start as 16th-
seeded Gardner Webb led at halftime of the opening
game. The crowd in columbia, S.c., just two hours
from the Bulldogs’ campus, rocked in support of the underdogs
and the cavaliers could not avoid flashing back to last year’s di-
sastrous upset loss to umBc. But hunter led a fiery comeback,
throwing down a ferocious two-hand jam that cut Gardner
Webb’s lead to a single basket. That was part of a 23-3 run uVa
used to open the second half and put the Bulldogs, and the
memory of last year, away. THE ASSOCIATED PRESS DEAN HOFFMEYER/TIMES-DISPATCH

Congrats
Champs
Celebrate with this hardcover collector’s book.
Get the limited-edition collector’s book, “The Road to Redemption,” that captures

Basketball
Virginia’s remarkable season. From early-season momentum to the Cavaliers’ first
NCAA championship, this 160-page hardcover book puts you inside the action
with stories and photos from the writers and photographers of the Richmond
Times-Dispatch and The Daily Progress.
players rely on
Pre-order now their coaches for
$29.95
$39.95
STRATEGY.
plus tax & shipping
offer expires 4/15/19 WE GET THAT.
We have provided sound investment advice
Pre-order your copy now at
to generations of families and institutions
for more than 155 years. Our wide range of
RTD.UVABOOK.COM services include:
• asset management
Pre-order by mail now (discount expires 4/15/19): • corporate finance
☐ Ship my order to me: $29.95 plus 1.96 tax and $6.95 shipping and handling per book. Order will be shipped to the • financial planning
address below after 5/22/19. Quantity: ___ x $38.86 = $______ total
• insurance
Payment method: ☐ Check/Money Order ☐ Visa ☐ MasterCard ☐ AmEx ☐ Discover
• public finance
Send form and payment to:
Name Richmond Times-Dispatch UVa Book • research
c/o The Daily Progress
685 W. Rio Road • stock and bond brokerage
Address Charlottesville, VA 22901

City State Zip

Phone E-mail

Card # Expiration

Signature Verification Code

presented by
(804) 780-2000 • www.investdavenport.com
901 East Cary Street, Suite 1100 Richmond, VA 23219
Richmond Times-dispaTch • • • sunday, apRil 14, 2019 U15

screens than scoring. But for Hunter,

DEAN HOFFMEYER/ TIMES-DISPATCH
Diakite and Huff, who are all taller
and all capable of scoring, it isn’t as
beneficial.
It also isn’t the best offense for
Clark, who isn’t a go-to shooter.
Running blocker-mover can be a
challenge when your two big men
aren’t scorers and one of your three
movers isn’t really a shooter.
So Bennett added an offense
where the roles are less defined
and any player is capable of being
a scorer. It’s often known as ball-
screen continuity, though Virginia
refers to it as “flow.” It’s a motion of-
fense with interspersed ball screens,
and it’s one of the most popular con-
cepts in college basketball.
If the 6-foot-7 Hunter is on the
floor, he isn’t limited to blocking
for other players. The big guys on
the team can roll to the rim, receive
passes in the paint and score. They
also can take long-distance shots.
“We have guys who can shoot at
every position when Mamadi and
Jay come in,” Hunter said. “I feel like
last year we didn’t really have that at
times.”
According to Jordan Sperber, a

The X’s and O’s

Kyle Guy and the Cavs are known
for their defense, but it was an
offensive reinvention that made
this year’s team so formidable.
former video coordinator at New
Mexico State who analyzes college
basketball on his Twitter account,
@Hoopvision68, Virginia used ball-
screen continuity 23 times in the first

of Virginia’s run
half against Oklahoma in the second
round of the NCAA tournament and
FG FT Reb
TEXAS TECH M M-A M-A O-T A PF PT
scored 29 points. Virginia employed
Owens 22 1-3 1-2 2-5 0 5 3 blocker-mover just four times during
Odiase 18 1-1 3-3 0-6 0 2 5
that span and scored no points off it.

to a national title
Culver 41 5-22 5-6 5-9 5 3 15
Mooney 41 4-9 0-0 0-1 3 3 10 It would have been far easier,
Moretti 40 5-10 2-2 0-2 0 3 15
Francis 37 7-12 0-0 0-4 0 1 17 Sperber said, for Bennett to make
Edwards
Corprew
23 4-5 2-2 0-3 1 0 12
3 0-1 0-0 0-0 0 1 0
tweaks to the blocker-mover offense
Totals 225 27-63 13-15 7-30 9 18 77 it already had. Instead, he installed
Percentages: FG .429, FT .867. 3-Point Goals:
10-30, .333 (Moretti 3-6, Francis 3-7, Edwards a new offense, and in less than one

Blocker-mover offense set aside in season, Virginia has mastered it.

2-3, Mooney 2-6, Corprew 0-1, Owens 0-1, Cul-
ver 0-6). Team Rebounds: 2. Blocks: 3 (Culver,
Odiase, Owens). Turnovers: 8 (Culver 3, Francis, “It’s what makes him great as a
Mooney, Moretti, Odiase, Owens). Steals: 6 coach,” Sperber said. “Because ev-
favor of ball-screen continuity
(Culver 2, Mooney 2, Moretti 2).
erything is so structured and so
FG FT Reb planned.”
VIRGINIA M M-A M-A O-T A PF PT
Diakite 25 2-4 5-6 3-7 0 3 9
Bennett is known as a system
Clark 33 1-2 0-0 1-2 4 2 3 coach, a guy who sticks with con-
Guy 45 8-15 4-4 0-3 0 3 24
By ERIC KOLENICH • Richmond Times-dispatch Hunter 44 8-16 7-9 4-9 1 1 27 cepts in which he believes. He has
Jerome
Key
42 6-16 2-2 1-6 8 1 16
28 2-5 2-2 2-10 2 3 6
made his name with the Pack-
Salt 4 0-0 0-0 0-1 0 1 0 Line defense and the success it has
When Virginia lost to UMBC in Hunter more freedom, and they gave Huff
Totals
3 0-1 0-0 0-0 0 1
225 27-59 20-23 11-38 15 15 85
0
brought. But even Bennett is willing
last year’s NCAA tournament, the skilled big men such as Mamadi Dia- Percentages: FG .458, FT .870. 3-Point Goals: to change when change is required.
11-24, .458 (Hunter 4-5, Guy 4-9, Jerome 2-6,
Cavaliers missed nine of their first 12 kite and Jay Huff the chance to dis- Clark 1-1, Diakite 0-1, Huff 0-1, Key 0-1). Team “[The loss to] UMBC really did
shots and failed on eight of their first play their offensive abilities more. Rebounds: 1. Blocks: 3 (Diakite 2, Key). Turn- spark some change,” Sperber said.
overs: 11 (Hunter 4, Clark 2, Diakite, Guy, Je-
nine 3-point attempts. They finished “I think it’s a good offense for us,” rome, Key, Salt). Steals: 4 (Diakite, Guy, Hunter, There are some concepts he’ll
with 54 points, became the first No. freshman Kihei Clark said. Jerome). never abandon, Bennett said. Oth-
Texas Tech 29 39 9 — 77
1 seed to lose to a No. 16 seed, and For years, UVA’s main offense Virginia 32 36 17 — 85 ers, he’ll adjust based on his person-
coach Tony Bennett decided he had was the blocker-mover, which was nel. Switching from blocker-mover
seen enough. developed by Bennett’s father, Dick to ball-screen continuity meant
During the summer, Bennett and Bennett, and became an identify- Final regular-season ACC standings straying from an offensive approach
his coaching staff installed a new of- ing mark of Tony Bennett’s teams. Conf. All he’s used his whole career.
W L W L
fense that capitalizes on the diverse The strategy calls for two players, VIRGINIA 16 2 28 2 “You’re always challenging your-
abilities of its players. They tested it typically big men, to set screens North Carolina 16 2 26 5 self as a coach,” Bennett said. “You
Duke 14 4 26 5
on the court in the first game of the on either side of the lane. They’re Florida State 13 5 25 6 have to keep improving. The game
season against Towson, and as the the blockers. The movers, typically Virginia Tech
Louisville
12
10
6
8
23
19
7
12
changes.”
year went on, it became Virginia’s guards, run off the screens and are Syracuse 10 8 19 12 Not only does the new offense fit
N.C. State 9 9 21 10
primary means of scoring. the primary scorers. Clemson 9 9 19 12 with his current roster, it fits with
The results have been gratifying: But UVA’s offense became stag- Georgia Tech 6 12 14 17 the current fashion of college bas-
Boston College 5 13 14 16
Virginia’s offensive efficiency, which nant last year, assistant Jason Wil- Miami 5 13 13 17 ketball in 2019, where big men are
ranked 30th nationally last year ac- liford said. It had a reputation that it Wake Forest
Notre Dame
4 14
3 15
11
13
19
18
increasingly more skilled and hun-
cording to KenPom.com, jumped to risked stalling. Pittsburgh 3 15 13 18 grier to shoot. Playing this new of-
No. 2 this year. “It was the same thing again and Note: Does not include postseason fense makes Virginia more attractive
Make no mistake, talent is the pri- again every year,” Diakite said. “And to tall, talented recruits who want to
mary reason why Virginia’s offense people were able to understand how Virginia (35-3)
score when they get to college.
was so good in 2018-19. This was we played.” Home: 15-1 Away: 10-1 Neutral: 10-1 As Virginia’s cachet has improved
likely the most offensively skilled And blocker-mover wasn’t the Date
Nov. 6
Team
Towson
Result
W, 73-42
on a national level, so has its ability
group Bennett coached at Virginia, best fit for the personnel Virginia Nov. 11 George Washington W, 76-57 to recruit talented forwards. When
and sophomore De’Andre Hunter is brought back in 2018-19, either. It Nov. 16
Nov. 21
Coppin State
x-Middle Tennessee
W, 97-40
W, 74-52
the 7-1 Huff committed to Virginia,
his highest regarded NBA prospect. makes sense for Jack Salt, a 6-foot- Nov. 22 x-Dayton W, 66-59 he knew his first responsibility
Nov. 23 x-Wisconsin W, 53-46
But the new offensive sets allowed 10 center who’s better at setting Nov. 18 at Maryland W, 76-71 would be to set screens and grab re-
Dec. 3 Morgan State W, 83-45 bounds. But he figured he’d get an
Dec. 9 VCU W, 57-49
Dec. 19 South Carolina W, 69-52 opportunity to score sooner or later,
Dec. 22
Dec. 31
William & Mary
Marshall
W, 72-40
W, 100-64
given the roster’s talent.
Jan. 5 Florida State W, 65-52 This year, that opportunity ar-
Jan. 9 at Boston College W, 83-56
Jan. 12 at Clemson W, 63-43 rived. Diakite, too, has enjoyed his
Jan. 15 Virginia Tech W, 81-59 prominence.
Jan. 19 at Duke L, 72-70
Jan. 22 Wake Forest W, 68-45 “I want the ball,” Diakite said. “If
Jan. 26
Jan. 29
at Notre Dame
at N.C. State
W, 82-55
W, o-66-65
I don’t get it, that’s cool, I’ll do other
Feb. 2 Miami W, 56-46 stuff. It doesn’t matter. But if I get
Feb. 9 Duke L, 81-71
Feb. 11 at North Carolina W, 69-61 the ball, I’ll do what I have to do with
Feb. 16 Notre Dame W, 60-54 it.”
Feb. 18 at Virginia Tech W, 64-58
Feb. 23 at Louisville W, 64-52 Bennett isn’t ready to commit to
Feb. 27
March 2
Georgia Tech
Pittsburgh
W, 81-51
W, 73-49
ball-screen continuity as the future
March 4 at Syracuse W, 79-53 of the Virginia offense. But with Salt
March 9 Louisville W, 73-68
due to graduate and Diakite and
ACC TOURNAMENT
March 14 N.C. State W, 76-56 Huff returning, it appears to be Vir-
March 15 Florida State L, 69-59 ginia’s path forward in 2019-20.
March 22
NCAA TOURNAMENT
Gardner-Webb W, 71-56
“Kind of depends on the person-
March 24 Oklahoma W, 63-51 nel,” Bennett said. “But you’re al-
March 28 Oregon W, 53-49
March 30 Purdue W, o-80-75
ways trying to move that needle.”
Virginia predominantly used a ball-screen continuity offense against Oklahoma April 6 Auburn W, 63-62
ekolenich@timesdispatch.com
April 8 Texas Tech W, o-85-77
in the second round of the NCAA tournament. Here, Mamadi Diakite sets a x-Battle 4 Atlantis, Nassau, Bahamas
(804) 649-6109
screen for Ty Jerome, but all five players are threats to score. o-overtime @EricKolenich

NCAA championship scores
2019: Virginia 85, Texas Tech 77, OT
2018: Villanova 79, Michigan 62
2017: North Carolina 71, Gonzaga 65
2016: Villanova 77, North Carolina 74
2015: Duke 68, Wisconsin 63
2014:Connecticut 60, Kentucky 54
2013: Louisville 82, Michigan 76
2012: Kentucky 67, Kansas 59
2011:Connecticut 53, Butler 41
2010: Duke 61, Butler 59
2009: North Carolina 89, Mich. State 72
2008: Kansas 75, Memphis 68, OT
2007: Florida 84, Ohio State 75
2006: Florida 73, UCLA 57
2005: North Carolina 75, Illinois 70
2004:Connecticut 82, Georgia Tech 73
2003: Syracuse 81, Kansas 78
2002: Maryland 64, Indiana 52
2001: Duke 82, Arizona 72
2000: Michigan State 89, Florida 76
1999:Connecticut 77, Duke 74
1998: Kentucky 78, Utah 69
1997: Arizona 84, Kentucky 79, OT
1996: Kentucky 76, Syracuse 67
1995: UCLA 89, Arkansas 78
1994: Arkansas 76, Duke 72
1993: North Carolina 77, Michigan 71
1992: Duke 71, Michigan 51
1991: Duke 72, Kansas 65
1990: UNLV 103, Duke 73
1989: Michigan 80, Seton Hall 79, OT
1988: Kansas 83, Oklahoma 79
1987: Indiana 74, Syracuse 73
1986: Louisville 72, Duke 69
1985: Villanova 66, Georgetown 64
1984: Georgetown 84, Houston 75
1983: N.C. State 54, Houston 52
1982: North Carolina 63, Georgetown 62
1981: Indiana 63, North Carolina 50
1980: Louisville 59, UCLA 54
1979: Michigan State 75, Indiana State 64
1978: Kentucky 94, Duke 88
1977: Marquette 67, North Carolina 59
1976: Indiana 86, Michigan 68
1975: UCLA 92, Kentucky 85
1974: N.C. State 76, Marquette 64
1973: UCLA 87, Memphis State 66
1972: UCLA 81, Florida State 76
1971: UCLA 68, Villanova 62
1970: UCLA 80, Jacksonville 69
1969: UCLA 92, Purdue 72
1968: UCLA 78, North Carolina 55
1967: UCLA 79, Dayton 64
1966: Texas Western 72, Kentucky 65
1965: UCLA 91, Michigan 80
1964: UCLA 98, Duke 83
1963: Loyola of Chicago 60,
Cincinnati 58, OT
1962: Cincinnati 71, Ohio State 59
1961: Cincinnati 70, Ohio State 65, OT
1960: Ohio State 75, California 55
1959: California 71, West Virginia 70
1958: Kentucky 84, Seattle 72
1957: North Carolina 54, Kansas 53, 3OT
1956: San Francisco 83, Iowa 71
1955: San Francisco 77, La Salle 63
1954: La Salle 92, Bradley 76
1953: Indiana 69, Kansas 68
1952: Kansas 80, St. John’s 63
1951: Kentucky 68, Kansas State 58
1950: CCNY 71, Bradley 68
1949: Kentucky 46, Oklahoma A&M 36
1948: Kentucky 58, Baylor 42
1947: Holy Cross 58, Oklahoma 47
1946: Okla. A&M 43, North Carolina 40
1945: Oklahoma A&M 49, NYU 45
1944: Utah 42, Dartmouth 40, OT
1943: Wyoming 46, Georgetown 34
1942: Stanford 53, Dartmouth 38
1941: Wisconsin 39, Washington State 34
1940: Indiana 60, Kansas 42
1939: Oregon 46, Ohio State 34
NCAA tournament
most outstanding players
2019: Kyle Guy, Virginia
2018: Donte DiVincenzo, Villanova
2017: Joel Berry II, North Carolina
2016: Ryan Arcidiacono, Villanova
2015: Tyus Jones, Duke
2014: Shabazz Napier, UConn
2013: Luke Hancock, Louisville
2012: Anthony Davis, Kentucky
2011: Kemba Walker, UConn
2010: Kyle Singler, Duke
2009: Wayne Ellington, North Carolina
2008: Mario Chalmers, Kansas
2007: Corey Brewer, Florida
2006: Joakim Noah, Florida
2005: Sean May, North Carolina
2004: Emeka Okafor, UConn
2003: Carmelo Anthony, Syracuse
2002: Juan Dixon, Maryland
2001: Shane Battier, Duke
2000: Mateen Cleaves, Michigan State
1999: Richard Hamilton, UConn
1998: Jeff Sheppard, Kentucky
1997: Miles Simon, Arizona
1996: Tony Delk, Kentucky
1995: Ed O’Bannon, UCLA
1994: Corliss Williamson, Arkansas
1993: Donald Williams, North Carolina
1992: Bobby Hurley, Duke
1991: Christian Laettner, Duke
1990: Anderson Hunt, UNLV
1989: Glen Rice, Michigan
1988: Danny Manning, Kansas
1987: Keith Smart, Indiana
1986: Pervis Ellison, Louisville
1985: Ed Pinckney, Villanova
1984: Patrick Ewing, Georgetown
1983: Akeem Olajuwon, Houston
1982: James Worthy, North Carolina
1981: Isiah Thomas, Indiana
1980: Darrell Griffith, Louisville
1979: Magic Johnson, Michigan State
1978: Jack Givens, Kentucky
1977: Butch Lee, Marquette
1976: Kent Benson, Indiana
1975: Richard Washington, UCLA
1974: David Thompson, N.C. State
1973: Bill Walton, UCLA
1972: Bill Walton, UCLA
1971: x-Howard Porter, Villanova
1970: Sidney Wicks, UCLA
1969: Lew Alcindor, UCLA
1968: Lew Alcindor, UCLA
1967: Lew Alcindor, UCLA
1966: Jerry Chambers, Utah
1965: Bill Bradley, Princeton
1964: Walt Hazzard, UCLA
1963: Art Heyman, Duke
1962: Paul Hogue, Cincinnati
1961: Jerry Lucas, Ohio State
1960: Jerry Lucas, Ohio State
1959: Jerry West, West Virginia
1958: Elgin Baylor, Seattle
1957: Wilt Chamberlain, Kansas
1956: Hal Lear, Temple
1955: Bill Russell, San Francisco
1954: Tom Gola, La Salle
1953: B.H. Born, Kansas
1952: Clyde Lovellette, Kansas
1951: None selected
1950: Irwin Dambrot, CCNY
1949: Alex Groza, Kentucky
1948: Alex Groza, Kentucky
1947: George Kaftan, Holy Cross
1946: Bob Kurland, Oklahoma A&M
1945: Bob Kurland, Oklahoma A&M
1944: Arnold Ferrin, Utah
1943: Ken Sailors, Wyoming
1942: Howie Dallmar, Stanford
1941: John Kotz, Wisconsin
1940: Marvin Huffman, Indiana
1939: None selected
x-subsequently ruled ineligible
U16 SUNDAY, APRIL 14, 2019 • • • RICHMOND TIMES-DISPATCH

V I R G I N I A CAVA L I E R S
2019 NCAA MEN’S BASKETBALL NATIONAL CHAMPIONS

DEAN HOFFMEYER/TIMES-DISPATCH

‘IF YOU LEARN TO USE IT RIGHT,

THE ADVERSITY, IT WILL BUY YOU
A TICKET TO A PLACE YOU COULDN’ T
HAVE GONE ANY OTHER WAY.’
Tony Bennett,
University of Virginia coach
SECTION S • R I C H M O N D T I M E S - D I S PAT C H • S u N D Ay, A u g u S T 1 8 , 2 0 1 9 • RICHMOND.COM •••

Camille
5 0 Y e a r s L a t e r

‘‘
aug. 19-20, 1969

They don’t call it ‘Camille,’ around here. They call it

‘ The Flood.’
The WorsT naTural disasTer in sTaTe hisTory
NelsoN CouNty: 124 dead | 27 + inches of rainfaLL over one night
statewide: 153 dead | more than 900 buiLdings and 100 bridges damaged or destroYed

’’
S2 Sunday, auguSt 18, 2019 • • • Richmond timeS-diSpatch

Hurricane camille

About this series

In Nelson County,
a
fter more than six months’ worth of rain fell on
nelson county in a single night in august 1969,

lives still touched by

creating the worst natural disaster in Virginia
history, a young Richmond newspaper photogra-
pher named Bob Brown was dispatched to that
part of the state.
With access to nelson county severely limited and with word

furious 1969 storm

that charlottesville photographer Rip payne, a fine shooter,
was on the scene, Brown detoured to nearby Rockbridge
county, where 23 people were killed and his hometown of
Buena Vista was inundated.
in the decades since, Brown has visited nelson county on nu-
merous occasions, including in 1970 for the first anniversary
and again in 1994, a quarter century after camille slammed
into nelson and killed 124 people. he knows well the story and
the toll taken by the storm on the county. Deadly event is a ‘time
columnist Bill Lohmann and staff meteorologist John Boyer
don’t have quite the long-term connection to the camille
stamp’ for those who
story. in august 1969, Lohmann, then 12, delivered the news of survived horrific flood
camille’s devastation to customers along his Richmond news
Leader paper route. Boyer was still decades from being born, By BILL LOHMANN
but he grew up in similar Blue Ridge terrain, just a couple hours Richmond times-dispatch
south of nelson, where his career in weather was inspired
by watching storms like Fran, Frances, isabel and ivan blow While Nelson County slept, the
through. heavens opened and the rain cas-
caded down.
Brown, Lohmann and Boyer began working on this project in It fell not in sheets, but slabs,
april, making a number of visits to nelson and getting to know unthinkable amounts of rainfall
some of the people who survived the storm and how they — in only a few hours on either side
and their county — are doing 50 years later. of midnight on Aug. 19-20, 1969,
designers Justin morrison and Kira Rider created the maps that tore away mountainsides and
and graphics, and morrison designed this section. photog- turned typically docile streams
rapher Joe mahoney edited the videos that accompany the into churning, inland seas. The
online versions of this report. managing editor mike Szvetitz combination of landslides and
choreographed the entire project. raging torrents swept away
houses, washed out roads and
as we researched the history, we developed a great apprecia-
bridges, and killed 108 county res-
tion for the people of the Richmond times-dispatch and the
idents — almost 1% of the coun-
Richmond news Leader who did the original reporting and
ty’s population at the time — plus
photography in 1969 and in subsequent years, work that we
eight others who were visiting or
leaned on heavily.
traveling through and another
and, of course, we couldn’t have done this without the assis- eight who remain unidentified,
tance of many people in nelson. Special thanks go to residents according to the Nelson County
such as Warren Raines, who dropped what he was doing and Historical Society.
spent an afternoon with us graciously telling his chilling story The hillside scars are mostly
of survival and showing us around his part of the county. hidden now — 50-year-old trees
then there’s dick Whitehead, a volunteer with the nelson can conceal a lot — but the emo-
county historical Society who is one of the primary archivists tional ones never go away.
of camille photographs and camille-related stories, who intro- Asked how often his mind
duced us to people around the county and generously shared flashes back to that night, Bill
his time and considerable knowledge. Whitehead grew up in Harris, a deputy sheriff at the
nelson, the son of Bill Whitehead, who was sheriff at the time time, said without a hint of exag-
of camille. dick Whitehead went on to become a geologist, geration, “Every day.”
though not specifically because of camille. The rain was falling so hard on
the tin roof of the Harrises’ farm-
“i always had an interest in land, creeks, where things go,” he house that it drowned out their
said. “my dad would say, ‘you need to know where that water words as Harris, his wife and
goes, where it comes from. you need to know what’s on the young son sat in an upstairs bed-
other side of that ridge.’ he taught me to have a respect for room wondering and worrying
geography that way.” what they should do next.
the historical society, with its camille collection, was a great Thunder rolled through the
font of information. the organization is trying to raise money valleys and constant lightning
and consciousness as it continues to tell the story of camille by turned night to day.
collecting artifacts and oral histories, utilizing technology and Then what sounded like a
experts — not only as a sobering history lesson but as a way to freight train slammed into the
inform future decisions involving development. you can find house — it turned out to be a
out more at nelsonhistorical.org and also order “commemorat- large poplar tree — and when
ing camille,” a new book produced for the 50th anniversary. the Harrises went downstairs
— Bill Lohmann they found mud and water surg-
ing across the floor. They fled to
higher ground at a neighbor’s
house, wading through swelling
waters that covered their yard
while shielding their faces with
their hands to block the dense,
driving rain so they could breathe.
“I could not conceive what was
happening,” Harris said. “Only
way I can explain it is that it was a
living nightmare.”
They were among the lucky
ones. Elsewhere in the county,
entire households were lost as
homes were battered in the night,
Joe mahoney/times-dispatCh reduced to splinters, and their
Richmond Times-Dispatch meteorologist John Boyer occupants washed miles down-
(from left), senior photographer Bob Brown and stream. Some were never found.
columnist Bill Lohmann played lead roles in this report. Hurricane Camille, one of the
most powerful storms to hit the
Contact John Boyer at jboyer@timesdispatch.com
Contact Bob Brown at bbrown@timesdispatch.com
United States, was the culprit.
Contact Bill Lohmann at wlohmann@timesdispatch.com Having left death and destruction
along the Gulf coast of Mississippi
where it came ashore, the storm
weakened as it spun northward
INSIDE into the Ohio Valley, then made a
right turn toward the East Coast.
Davis Creek the deadliest address in nelson .............. PAGE S4
A torrent From a gentle shower to downpour ............ PAGE S4
Underestimated camille was expected to fade ...... PAGE S5
Massies Mill Remembering what camille took .......... PAGE S6
Richmond floods the water rushes downstream .... PAGE S8
High ground homes are destroyed as families flee .. PAGE S9
Unidentified Some victims remain unknown ............. PAGE S9
Memories the scars of camille remain ....................... PAGE S10
Lessons learned Weather technology improves .... PAGE S10
Flying in pilots bring relief to cut off areas .................. PAGE S11
Mennonites hundreds arrive to help in recovery ...... PAGE S11
The next one Virginia mountains still vulnerable ..... PAGE S12
Rain was expected by the time
it reached Virginia — and heavy
rains did fall across parts of the
state, and record flooding of the
James River eventually made its
way to Richmond — but no place
was hit like Nelson County, nor-
mally quiet and scenic in the
foothills of the Blue Ridge, where
more than 2 feet of rain fell in the
span of a few hours. Some resi-
dents of the county must have
wondered if the apocalypse had
arrived.
Life goes on, and Nelson
County has, too. In the decades
since, the county has become
a destination for travelers with
Wintergreen Resort and numer-
ous wineries and breweries. Na-
tive son Earl Hamner Jr. made
it famous with “The Waltons,”
and some of the best apples and
peaches anywhere still grow here.
But the storm that unleashed
its fury on this unsuspecting place
50 years ago is not forgotten, nor
are those who were lost. On the
anniversary every August, the
bell at Grace Episcopal Church in
Massies Mill, one of the hardest-
hit areas of the county, tolls for
each of the 124 victims who died
in Nelson County 50 years ago.
“They don’t call it ‘Camille,’
around here,” said the Rev.
Marion E. Kanour, rector of the
church. “They call it ‘The Flood.’”
vvv
The summer of 1969 was one
monumental headline after an-
other, and on Aug. 19 the news
was still coming:
Woodstock had been held the
weekend before, the Manson
Family murders were carried out
in Los Angeles 10 days prior, and
Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin
walked on the moon a month
earlier. Weeks before that, a po-
lice raid at the Stonewall Inn, a
gay club in New York City, led to
clashes between gay activists and
New York City police and became
a catalyst for the gay rights move-
ment. All of this came against the
backdrop of the Vietnam War
which dragged on, battlefield im-
ages beamed nightly into our
living rooms on the evening televi-
sion news shows.
The big news of the day in Nel-
son County, in the foothills of the
Blue Ridge, was the Democratic
gubernatorial primary runoff be-
tween former Ambassador Wil-
liam C. Battle, a moderate, and
State Sen. Henry E. Howell, a lib-
eral who in later campaigns be-
came known for his promise to
“Keep the big boys honest.” Battle
won the runoff, but would lose the
November election to A. Linwood
Holton Jr., Virginia’s first Republi-
can governor in the 20th century.
But by the morning of Aug. 20,
all of that was forgotten as the
residents of Nelson County found
themselves trying to awake from a
nightmare they could never have
imagined: a freak rainstorm from
the remnants of Hurricane Ca-
mille dumped more than 2 feet of
rain on the county over the span of
a few hours overnight, triggering
landslides and flooding that killed
124 in a county of about 12,000.
(Though numbers of missing and
dead have varied in reports over
the years, the current figure used
by the Nelson County Historical
Society is 124.)
The deadly event is considered
“a time stamp” for the county, said
Deborah Harvey, president of the
Nelson County Historical Society.
“If you’re trying to get some per-
spective in time, it happened be-
fore Camille or it happened after,”
she said.
Other parts of Virginia suf-
fered mightily – from Rockbridge
County where 23 people died to
Richmond, which experienced
historic flooding days later. State-
wide, there were 153 fatalities,
with more than 900 buildings and
100 bridges damaged or destroyed,
according to the Virginia Depart-
ment of Emergency Management.
But no place experienced anguish
on the scale of Nelson.
Over the years, the Nelson
County Historical Society has col-
lected oral histories, photographs
and assorted artifacts related to
Camille. A sampling is on display
at the Oakland Museum, housed
in a former inn and tavern on a
stagecoach route along U.S. 29
south of Lovingston, including
a 45-rpm of a song written and
recorded by a 14-year-old Nel-
son resident about the aftermath
of Camille, “The Bypass,” which
made it to the country music
charts, a hand-drawn map of the
Massies Mill area of the county by
a man who lost his mother, and a
saxophone, which was found in its
case along the Tye River and had
belonged to a high school student
killed in the flood.
In recent months, the or-
ganization has held a series of
well-attended public programs
discussing various aspects of Ca-
mille, though the notion of com-
memorating the deadly storm is
not universally applauded in the
county.
“A lot of people don’t think we
should be,” Harvey said. “It’s been
a little bit of a sensitive subject,
but I think it’s important that we
not forget those who were lost. We
don’t want to bring back painful
memories for people, but we want
to honor and remember in a re-
spectful way those who lost their
lives.”
For those who do talk about it,
that moment in time is seared in
their memories:
Bar Delk and retired Circuit
Judge J. Michael Gamble, who
were young men at the time (Delk
had finished college and was
headed to the Army and eventu-
ally to Vietnam, while Gamble was
Continued on Page S3

AT RICHMOND.COM
See video of survivors and responders as they recall
the night that storms came to nelson county, dropping more
than 27 inches of rain and killing more than 120 people,
courtesy of hurricane camille.
See a photo gallery of more than 100 archive photos showing
scenes from across the state of the aftermath of the storm.

ON THE COvER: A house sat atop a logjam (top) in the

middle of U.S. 29 north of Lovingston after flooding
from the remnants of Camille. Below, Austin Fitzgerald’s
store in Tyro was surrounded by floodwaters.
times-dispatCh, top, UsmC fRom the BiLL Whitehead CoLLeCtion, Bottom
Rip payne
Workers and volunteers searched debris for bodies Aug. 25, 1969, in the Woods Mill area of Nelson County, where
124 people were killed in flooding and landslides caused by Hurricane Camille.
Richmond Times-dispaTch
Continued From Page S2
about to enter his third year at the
University of Virginia) never will
forget wading through mud and
debris searching for — and find-
ing — bodies as volunteers in the
recovery effort.
Delk said community leaders
who stepped up to take charge of
the situation in the days follow-
ing the storm wanted local peo-
ple doing the searching because
“these were Nelson people” who
were lost. “Basically, they didn’t
want somebody else going out
looking for our people,” he said.
Said Gamble, whose father,
James, was a Lovingston physi-
cian who assisted in the identifica-
tion of bodies: “We only had about
11,000 people in Nelson County,
so if you didn’t know [the victims]
you knew the families.”
Doris Delk, Bar’s wife, who
worked alongside her mother, sis-
ter and aunt in the makeshift can-
teen where volunteers prepared
food for those involved in the
search and other work in the after-
math, had graduated from Nelson
County High the year before.
“We had 124 in our class, and
we lost three of them,” she said.
“We only lost one in Vietnam.”
Dick Whitehead, who had just
graduated from high school, went
out with his father, Bill, the county
sheriff, as the rain fell in the mid-
dle of the night. He recalled en-
countering a neighbor, frantically
searching for his wife and daugh-
ters after their house had washed
away.
“My childhood friends,” White-
head said. “I had never known life
without them.”
Paul M. Saunders, patriarch of
Saunders Brothers Farm Market
in Piney River and known as “The
Apple Man,” also grows peaches,
and he was in the middle of pick-
ing peaches when Camille struck.
He lost the remainder of the
peaches and all of his corn crop
— but he was one of the lucky
ones. Neighbors lost loved ones,
and much of the county was cut
off from the outside world. The
place he loved was in trouble and
in pain.
As he contemplated all that
had happened, he stood with his
young sons beneath a maple tree
at their home.
“Tom, who’s No. 2 boy, came
up to me,” recalled Saunders, who
has written several books about
his life in Nelson, “and he said,
‘Papa, we’ve got each other.’ That
left a very indelible impression on
me.”
❖❖❖
Nelson is a far different place
than it was 50 years ago.
Though, in some ways, it isn’t
much different at all.
VIRGINIA
Nelson County
Wintergreen
Montebello
56
Tye River
Tye River
Tyro
151
Massies Mill
Pin y
River
e
It’s still Piney River
a largely
rural place
with a scenic beauty
unsurpassed. Its popu-
lation has grown by about
2,000 since 1969 to more than
14,000 residents.
U.S. 29, the major north-
south artery through the heart
of the county, is now four lanes
all the way from Charlottesville
to Lynchburg, a sign the county
“has opened up to the world,”
said Jane Raup, a lifelong resi-
dent whose father, Cliff Wood,
by default became the leader
of the county’s response to Ca-
mille as he was the only member
of the board of supervisors who
could reach Lovingston after the
storm.
Wintergreen Resort opened
in the 1970s in the northern part
of the county, a milestone in the
county’s turn to a more tour-
ism-based economy. Seasonal
residents started joining those
whose families, many of them
farmers, have lived in Nelson for
generations and “come-heres”
drawn by the opportunity to live
in the country within easy driv-
ing distance of cities such as
Charlottesville or Lynchburg.
Factories that once provided
jobs for county residents are
largely gone, and Nelson now re-
lies more on businesses such as
wineries, breweries and distill-
eries that have popped up along
U.S. 29 and Highway 151 in the
Rockfish Valley.
“Tourism is such a big thing
now, using the county’s amaz-
ing beauty,” said Raup, archivist
with the Nelson County Histori-
cal Society.
One of the challenges of the
county continues to be having
enough opportunities for young
64
Afton 250
151
Woods Mill
s were used to build the library
vi
Da eek
Cr
29
Lovingston
Roseland
29
Norwood
James R
r iver
R ive
Tye
Buffalo
Station
60
people who leave for college or
better job options elsewhere
and do not come back, said Gary
Wood, president and CEO of
Central Virginia Electric Coop-
erative, in Lovingston, and also a
native of Nelson.
“We’re growing more local
jobs, but it’s hard to grow them
fast enough when you’re gradu-
ating 150 a year,” Wood said of
Nelson County High, the coun-
ty’s only high school. “That
doesn’t sound like a big number,
but 150 jobs a year is tough to
grow in a rural area.”
One thing that might help
— as far as helping the devel-
opment of small business or
workers telecommute — is a
$100 million project Wood’s
company is spearheading to de-
liver broadband internet access
to 37,000 customers in 14 coun-
ties, including Nelson, over the
next five years. Wood likened the
lack of high-speed internet ser-
vice in rural areas to the 1930s
when many who lived in rural
areas, including Nelson County,
still did not have access to elec-
tricity. The arrival of electricity
via electric co-ops changed the
• • • sunday, augusT 18, 2019 S3
5 0 Y E A R S L AT E R
TIMES-DISPATCH
Flooding and way of life for county residents.
mudslides “Broadband coming is a lit-
tle bit of the same thing,” said
caused by
Wood, who said it’s not un-
Camille common to see families parked
deposited outside the county library in Lov-
debris and a ingston on Sunday afternoons,
house across
even when the library is closed,
so their kids can tap into the li-
U.S. 29 near brary’s Wi-Fi and finish their
Lovingston. homework.
The Nelson Memorial Library
came about, in part, because of
Camille. Proceeds from the sale
of “Torn Land,” a book about
the flood commissioned by the
Nelson Chamber of Commerce,
Ro
c
Ri kfis and to join the Jefferson-Madi-
ve
r son Regional Library system.
h
Schuyler
Camille also may have helped
spawn zoning and flood-plain
ordinances in the county, which
had neither at the time of the
storm.
Howardsville Such regulations “probably
would have come anyway,” said
Woody Greenberg, a longtime
Nelson resident, former journal-
ist and an officer with the Nel-
son County Historical Society.
“When the county sat down after
Camille and started implement-
ing zoning and flood-plain ordi-
nances a lot of those discussions
were informed by what had hap-
pened during Camille.”
When Camille hit, Nelson was
in the midst of desegregating its
schools; the secondary schools
had been desegregated the year
before, and the elementary
schools were to be desegregated
in the 1969-70 school year, the
start of which was delayed by six
weeks because of the storm.
“I think [Camille] had a way
of bringing everyone together,”
“I could not said Raup, who was preparing to
enter ninth grade in August 1969
conceive and who later went on to become
an English teacher and media
what was specialist at Nelson County High
School until her retirement. “It
happening. made petty differences seem very
Only way I insignificant, as I recall.”
It’s still kind of like that among
can explain the generation that’s still here to
tell the story from a first-hand
it is that it perspective.
was a living “We all went through this to-
gether,” said Bar Delk, who re-
nightmare.” turned to Nelson three years
ago after spending his career in
Bill Harris, a deputy Louisa. “I think for the old-timers
sheriff at the time of here, it bonded us together.”
camille And, in a way, shaped their
lives.
“I was at a reunion of my Viet-
nam group a few years back …
and a few of us were talking and
this fellow’s wife said, ‘I get the
idea that Vietnam was the defin-
ing moment of you all’s life,’”
Delk recalled. “I said, ‘No, Ca-
mille was.’ Probably for others it
was true, but for me it wasn’t the
biggest deal. It was Camille.”
S4 Sunday, auguSt 18, 2019 • • • Richmond timeS-diSpatch

Hurricane camille

BOB BROWN/times-dispatch
Bill Seay jumps across Davis Creek on his property in Nelson County. Fifty years ago when Camille dumped at least 27 inches of rain overnight, the creek was probably 30 feet deep
and several hundred yards wide. Seay, who was 18 then, said he’s still stunned by what happened to the family’s hayfield between the creek and their house.

Stream appeared to be an ocean

Davis Creek proved
to be Nelson County’s
deadliest address
By BILL LOHMANN
Richmond times-dispatch
DAVIS CREEK — All of the
thunder and lightning hadn’t
disturbed 18-year-old Bill Seay,
who was sleeping soundly
until his mother woke him up
around 3 a.m. to make sure he
was all right. He was, but now
he was curious: he went to the
window of his second-story
bedroom to see what was going
on.
Though it was still the mid-
dle of the night, there was so
much lightning that he could
clearly make out the scene,
and 50 years later Seay remains
stunned by what had become
of the family’s hayfield between
Davis Creek and the house.
“It looked,” he said, “like an
ocean down below us.”
The usually mild-mannered
mountain stream, which you
could typically walk across on
stepping stones without getting
your feet wet and was perhaps
250 to 300 feet from the house,
had exploded beyond its banks
and was now lapping at the
knoll where the home was built.
The Seays’ home remained safe
and dry — though they did lose
a barn, a horse and a milk cow
— but residents living farther
down the valley in homes built
in the bottomland closer to the
creek were far less fortunate.
Davis Creek proved to be the
deadliest address in Nelson
County that night, with incon-
ceivable amounts of rainwater
washing down the mountain-
sides, dislodging boulders and
timber and unleashing an oth-
erworldly, putrid odor of sud-
denly exposed mountain dirt
and tree roots. The landslides
created periodic logjams before
the force of the building water
broke through, sending walls
of rushing water much deeper
than the tallest houses in the
narrowest parts of the valley.
More than 50 people who
were living along Davis Creek,
or visiting that night, were
killed. Some bodies washed
miles downstream, into the
Rockfish River, before they
were found. Others were never
seen again.
Continued on Page S5

Nightmare downpour
the amounts tapered
sharply down to 6 inches
or less north of Waynes-
boro and south of the
freezer.
This “bucket sur-
vey” revealed four sites
in west-central Nelson

in Nelson dropped clues

James River. It was highly County where amounts
irregular from valley to exceeded 20 inches.
valley, and elsewhere in The highest amount —
the rainfall zone. 27 inches — came from

in buckets and barrels We’ll never know ex-

By JOHN BOyER
Richmond times-dispatch
The rain started as a
seemingly normal sum-
mer thundershower after
sundown on Aug. 19 —
gentle, discrete drops that
spread from hill to hill
throughout the evening
— and tapered off to a
light drizzle by sunrise on
Aug. 20.
But from late evening
to 3 a.m., when the storm
was at its height, the
water spilled from the sky
in the form of a constant
cascade.
A blur. A torrent.
The catastrophic
cloudburst that Camille
unleashed over Nelson
County on the night of
Aug. 19-20, 1969, is diffi-
cult to fully comprehend.
It still eludes our best ef-
forts to understand pre-
cisely how heavy it was.
At least 27 inches of
rain fell around Massies
Mill and the mountains
just northwest of Lov-
ingston, but no weather
statistic can capture the
terror of that night, nor
the tragedy that followed.
The true scale of the
downpour is best under-
stood by listening to the
flood survivors.
Those forced outside
that night recall mak-
ing an identical gesture:
cupping their hands over
their mouth and nose to
be able to breathe.
Birds and animals ap-
parently drowned from
mere exposure to the sky.
There was no howl-
ing wind, despite what
Camille’s tropical ori-
gins may bring to mind.
The trees were eerily still,
stencils against strobing
pulses of lightning.
Then, swaths of forest
gave way with the land
itself.
The rain slapped tin
roofs like hail, drowning
out words. Above, inces-
sant claps of thunder. All
around, the Earth itself
shuddered. Below, des-
perate shouts from those
who were caught in its
force.
Continuous lightning
flashes illuminated a sud-
denly unfamiliar land-
scape in an eerie bluish
white, revealing oceans
in the fields surrounding
Davis Creek and rivers of
water rushing through
parts of Lovingston that
didn’t even have a named
creek nearby.
Where they hadn’t
been wiped away, rain
gauges, buckets, wash
tubs and even some
55-gallon barrels were
filled to the brims on the
morning of Aug. 20, 1969.
vvv
The extraordinary
scene was the result of a
fateful, freakish overlap
of weather features and
topography.
As heavy as the rain
was, it was also an ex-
tremely localized
downpour.
In the state’s bigger
cities, the professionally
equipped airport weather
stations saw a moderate
fall of rain beneath Ca-
mille that night.
A good soaking, and in
light of the earlier reports
from Kentucky, no cause
for alarm.
1.66 inches at
Washington.
2.69 inches in
Richmond.
1.45 inches in Lynch-
burg, where the forecast
office was closed at night,
anyway.
Buck Johnston, whose father is said to have measured
31 inches of rain in a 55-gallon barrel after Camille’s rain,
stands near his former home near Hat Creek, northeast
of Roseland in Nelson County.
There was no word of
flooding until it was al-
ready occurring.
Between the larger cit-
ies, 4 or more inches of
rain fell in a zone that
stretched from Covington
in the west to the North-
ern Neck in the east, just
to the north of the track of
Camille’s center.
Within that band,
even heavier totals fell
BOB BROWN/times-dispatch
in smaller bull’s-eyes: 10
inches around Clifton
Forge and western Rock-
bridge County, 15 to 20
inches over Fluvanna and
Louisa.
But through much of
Nelson County, totals
could be described more
simply as a range of 1 to
perhaps 3 feet.
Yet within 15 miles of
the heaviest rainfall areas,
actly how high that peak
rainfall total was, some-
where in the shadow of
the Blue Ridge.
Where gauges over-
flowed, the major caveat
is to add the words “at
least” to any reported
total.
Owing to that uncer-
tainty, various maximum
figures have been re-
ported in news articles,
agency reports, scientific
studies and by word of
mouth over the years.
The highest substanti-
ated value accepted by
the National Weather Ser-
vice is 27 inches, though
there was a credible, al-
beit unverified, report of
31 inches.
Even higher amounts
of 35, 40, or 46 inches
are plausible in light of
the catastrophe at Davis
Creek, but those figures
are estimates rather than
direct measurements.
For comparison, the
average annual precipita-
tion at Tye River is about
44 inches. For lofty Mon-
tebello, between the Blue
Ridge Parkway and Appa-
lachian Trail, the average
is nearly 53 inches.
Camille dumped seven
months of rain in less
than six hours.
vvv
“... the record very likely
will remain forever in
doubt.”
— Richmond News
Leader, September 1969
To reconstruct the ori-
gins of the surprise flood,
hydrologists from the
Weather Bureau and the
U.S. Geological Survey
visited the affected region
in the days after the storm
to interview residents
and examine any exposed
containers that filled with
water.
They measured plastic
rain gauges, garbage cans,
and even an ice cream
a rusty 55-gallon barrel
along Cub Creek, east of
Tyro. Its owner, Mrs. Hig-
ginbotham, later told an
Associated Press reporter
the barrel had been emp-
tied of all but a few ashes
after burning trash the
day before the flood.
In September 1969,
reports emerged of 31
inches in 5 hours near the
junction of the Tye and
Piney rivers.
A year later, after un-
successful efforts to es-
tablish the source of that
report, the Weather Bu-
reau chalked it up to a
miscommunication.
But that unverified 31-
inch report could very
well have been an obser-
vation made by the John-
ston family, who lived not
far from Roseland and
were known to Sheriff Bill
Whitehead and his son,
Dick.
There, the overnight
rain filled an exposed
55-gallon barrel — a 31-
inch dimension — but
the house avoided being
flooded.
Whether the peak fig-
ure was 27 inches or 31 or
more, it was undoubtedly
the superlative rainstorm
in Virginia history.
But designating any
official state, national or
global record requires a
high standard of proof,
documentation and ap-
proval by an expert
committee.
Those impromptu
barrels-turned-gauges
held vital, compelling evi-
dence of how the disaster
happened, but the tim-
ing and totals were un-
avoidably inexact. Their
contents rank among,
but can’t conclusively de-
throne any U.S. precipita-
tion records.
For a 4.5-hour storm,
official sources still cite
the record as a cloudburst
that emptied 30.8 inches
Continued on Page S5
Richmond Times-dispaTch
VIRGINIA DEPARTMENT OF HIGHWAYS
Continued From Page S4
And it wasn’t so much the
depth of the raging water, as
the debris it carried that proved
most lethal, leveling houses in
its path “like a bulldozer ran
over” them, said Dick White-
head, a volunteer at the Nelson
County Historical Society and
co-editor of a new book about
Camille published by the so-
ciety. His father, Bill, was the
county sheriff in 1969.
There were “rocks up there
as big as cars rolling around
like pebbles,” said Ed Tinsley,
a retired Virginia State Police
trooper in neighboring Amherst
County who was assigned to
Nelson in the aftermath of Ca-
mille and worked in the field
for several days and then at
the makeshift command cen-
ter in Lovingston for about two
weeks.
“That’s what killed most of
Flooding impact by county
Worst flash floods and landslides
(Nelson County)
Severe flash flooding
Some flash flooding
James River
James River watershed
Continued From Page S4
of rain on Smethport, Pa.,
on July 18, 1942.
vvv
Those amounts are
close to the theoreti-
cal maximum amount of
water the atmosphere can
wring out in such a short
span of time.
When revisiting the
original weather data,
sparse as it is by today’s
standards, every ingre-
dient for heavy rain was
present in Virginia, and
every parameter at the top
of the scale.
Rain forms when water
vapor rises and con-
denses, and mountains
enhance that process on
their upwind side.
Whenever tropical sys-
tems clash with the Ap-
palachian Mountains, the
heaviest rain is often seen
on the eastern and south-
eastern-facing slopes of
the Blue Ridge. By vir-
tue of its location, Nel-
son County is already a
favored locale for higher
rainfall amounts.
The center of tropical
depression Camille, winds
tame at ground-level
but more vigorous aloft,
crossed Virginia from west
to east from the evening
of Aug. 19 into the morn-
ing of Aug. 20. Its path
roughly followed the U.S.
460 corridor from Blue-
field, W.Va., to Hampton
Roads.
A cold front extending
from the Ohio River to the
Mid-Atlantic was slowly
crossing the mountains
and approaching North-
ern Virginia, acting as an
A view of one
of the many
landslides
caused by
the remnants
of Camille in
Nelson County,
VA in August of
1969. This one
is in the Davis
Creek area
where many
lives were lost.
Waynesboro
Lovingston
Buena Vista
Lynchburg
additional trigger for ris-
ing motion in the atmo-
sphere and heavy rainfall.
But this rain wasn’t
just a consequence of Ca-
mille, or the mountains,
or the cold front. All inter-
acted and played a role in
placing the heaviest rain
between Lexington and
Louisa, while smaller fea-
tures focused the most ex-
treme amounts on Nelson.
The torrential rain
wasn’t limited to the steep
slopes, however. Amounts
exceeding 20 inches fell
near Palmyra, southeast of
Charlottesville, where the
hills are much smaller.
Most tropical systems
that affect our area come
in from the southeast,
south or southwest. Ca-
mille’s due-west approach
was uncommon.
The few storms on re-
cord with a similar path
to Camille just left a bit of
extra rain in Virginia, cer-
tainly no major floods. But
those were all weaker sys-
tems to start with.
While advancing east-
ward across West Virginia
and southwest Virginia,
Camille’s counter-clock-
wise circulation also drew
in air from the south that
contained an unusually
high level of moisture.
Dew points in the mid-to-
upper 70s were near the
upper limits for what’s ob-
served in this region.
The southeast-to-
northwest flow of humid
air collided into the
mountainous barriers,
focused along the ap-
proaching front, con-
verged, vaulted upward
into towering thunder-
storms, condensed, and
the people. They didn’t drown.
They just got wiped out,” Tins-
ley said.
Seay went to check on his
neighbors, walking along the
edge of the mountain to stay
above the waterline. The first
house he came to belonged
to an older couple. Part of the
foundation of their home had
been washed out, but he found
them in bed with water reach-
ing to the bed, but they were
dry and safe.
The next house he came to
was on the other side of the
creek and with the water “too
wide and too rough,” as he put
it, he couldn’t reach it, though
it was a remarkable scene: The
front of the home had been
ripped away, exposing the inte-
rior like a dollhouse, with a bed
hanging from the second floor.
As it turned out, that family had
escaped safely.
The next house he came to,
right on the creek, was gone.
That family perished. At the
house after that, only the con-
crete back stoop remained.
That occupant, too, was killed.
At that point, he couldn’t go
any farther because of the high
water, and he circled back
around the mountain to home.
Farther down the creek,
more than 20 members of one
extended family — the Huff-
mans — died. Many are bur-
ied along Davis Creek Road in
the Oak Hill Baptist Cemetery,
where marker after marker
reads “Huffman” with a date of
death of Aug. 20, 1969: World
War II veterans to children.
The area along Davis Creek
remains wild and beautiful with
an off-the-beaten-path feel,
though newcomers have ar-
rived in the decades since Ca-
mille. There are fewer orchards
and, Seay said, fewer of the
same extended families along
the creek. He hasn’t lived there
in 40 years, but he’s returning.
Now 68 and retired from a
30-year career as agricultural
extension agent for Amherst
County, Seay is renovating the
home where he grew up so he
can live there once again.
Columbia
Richmond
rained.
And rained.
Thunderstorm cells
flared constantly over Nel-
son County for five or six
hours, but Camille’s low
pressure center kept mov-
ing eastward at a relatively
quick 25 to 30 mph. Had
Camille actually stalled
out here, like Harvey over
Houston or Florence in
the Carolinas, one hesi-
tates to imagine the result.
Or had it sliced farther
north or south across the
mountains, a devastating
flood would have been
aimed at different moun-
tains and river basins.
vvv
Daybreak on Aug. 20
revealed clearing skies
over western and central
Virginia as high pressure
built into the region.
For some, it instantly
registered that they faced
the same Camille that
wrecked the Gulf Coast.
For others, isolated or
taken by surprise, it took
days to attach that name
to the disaster.
Camille continued east-
ward and re-entered the
Atlantic Ocean on the af-
ternoon of Aug. 20, where
it had the rare distinction
of regaining tropical storm
strength after such a long
passage over land.
On Aug. 22, the storm
succumbed to cooler
water and an approach-
ing front while 250 miles
south of Newfoundland.
In Nelson County, sun-
shine turned the after-
math from mud to dust.
There wouldn’t be an-
other drop of rain until
after Labor Day.
• • • sunday, augusT 18, 2019 S5
5 0 y e a r s l at e r
MI NY
IA
MA
CT
PA
IL IN OH NJ RI
WV MD
DE
MO KY
VA
TN
AR NC
SC
MS AL GA Hurricane Camille path
LA
Tropical depression
Tropical storm
FL Hurricane
CU
BA
MEXICO
HAITI
JAMAICA
An ominous Gulf
hurricane was
underestimated
after landfall
By JOHN BOyER some refused to go. On the Gulf
Richmond Times-dispatch Coast, Camille claimed 143 lives and
left 200,000 people homeless or dis-
No one expected Camille to dev- placed for months.
astate Virginia. No one could have The fierce winds destroyed any
even imagined the result. anemometers that may have mea-
On Aug. 5, 1969, a cluster of thun- sured its wind speeds, but markedly
derstorms emerged from the western low barometric pressure — 900 mil-
coast of Africa and headed west into libars — proved that Camille was the
the Atlantic Ocean, an ordinary trop- second-most intense hurricane to
ical wave that would grow to be one hit the U.S. Only the 1935 Labor Day
of the strongest hurricanes to strike hurricane in the Florida Keys was
the United States and the worst more extreme.
weather disaster in Virginia history. After making landfall, the hurri-
Most Americans still hadn’t heard cane’s winds rapidly diminished as
of Pass Christian or Massies Mill. it left behind warm waters and en-
News headlines focused on other, countered the friction of terrain.
more distant places. In those days,
Vietnam. Belfast. The tropical storms
moon. Camille was the weren’t scrutinized
Two weeks later, closely after they
hundreds of peo-
second-most came ashore. The
ple would be dead intense hurricane last formal bulletin
and the land itself on Camille went out
reshaped. to hit the U.S. Only on Monday, Aug.
Hurricane Camille 18, as it weakened
pushed the meteoro- the 1935 Labor Day to tropical storm
logical limits at each hurricane in the force over northern
stage of its life: as an Mississippi.
explosive cyclone in Florida Keys was Local and regional
the Gulf of Mexico, Weather Bureau of-
as an unprecedented more extreme. fices were tasked
surge of wind and with keeping an eye
water in coastal Mis- on whatever rem-
sissippi, as an unimaginable deluge nants kept moving north. Camille
in Nelson County and as a record was expected to continue fading
river inundation from the Blue Ridge and spread leftover rain through the
mountains to Richmond. Ohio Valley and Northeast, swept up
The disturbance passed unevent- by a front that was advancing into
fully across the Atlantic and Carib- the Great Lakes. Up to that point, the
bean, then coalesced into the third heaviest rain along its path was a 10-
tropical storm of the 1969 season — inch total in southern Mississippi.
By the morning of Aug. 19,
Camille — just west of Jamaica on
Aug. 14. amounts dwindled to 2 to 3 inches
From the start, U.S. hurricane as Camille turned northeastward
forecasters sensed it would be a po- through the Tennessee Valley. The
tent storm. By Aug. 15, Camille was winds subsided to 30 mph, making it
swiftly strengthening into a hurri- a mere tropical depression.
cane as it arced north-northwest and The showers were steady and Ken-
grazed the western tip of Cuba. tucky had been dry. There, it was a
When it churned into the Gulf of welcome rain.
Mexico the following day, the re-
vvv
ports from reconnaissance aircraft
were increasingly ominous. The sea “VIRGINIA: ... There is a possibil-
whipped into deep furrows beneath ity of heavy rain late tomorrow in the
the eye. Wind gusts topped 190 mph. west portion.”
Had the intensity scale that Ca- — Richmond News Leader, Aug.
mille inspired been in use at the 18
time, it would have been classified a “Today’s drizzly weather is ex-
Category 5, the highest on the Saffir- pected to turn into thundershowers
Simpson scale. for a couple of days. Weatherman
Meteorologists at the Weather Bu- Mack Ohmart said Camille, which
reau (now the National Weather Ser- has been disarmed of winds and is
vice) issued hurricane watches and now just a low pressure area centered
warnings for parts of the Gulf Coast in western Kentucky, would couple
on Aug. 16, but the predictions had with a cold front headed this way
an eastward bias that suggested the to make the showers. The forecaster
storm would ultimately head for the hiked rain chances to 70 percent for
Florida Panhandle. tonight and said chances would be 40
On Aug. 17, Camille was still a percent Wednesday.”
major hurricane and was heading — Lynchburg Daily Advance, Aug.
north-northwest instead of curving 19
north. Dire hurricane warnings were Up to 2 inches of rain were pre-
expanded westward to Louisiana dicted for the Virginia mountains,
and Mississippi, forcing tens of thou- not unusual for a warm and muggy
sands of residents of that precari- summer day.
ously low-lying coast to evacuate in River forecast centers at Cincin-
a hurry. nati, Pittsburgh and Harrisburg, Pa.,
Late that evening, winds of 175 were expecting to see most of Ca-
mph hurtled around Camille’s eye mille’s leftover rain pass through,
as it grazed the mouth of the Missis- rather than the Washington office
sippi River and slammed ashore at responsible for Virginia. On the af-
Waveland, Miss., about halfway be- ternoon of the 19th, Camille’s decep-
tween New Orleans and Biloxi. tively weak showers veered sharply
The combination of wind and a eastward on a course for West Vir-
then-record 15 to 25 feet of storm ginia and Virginia. Had any real-time
surge destroyed everything in its radar or satellite pictures been avail-
path, erasing multistory buildings able, forecasters would have seen a
and heaving barges and oil tanks for troubling uptick in thunderstorm ac-
several miles. tivity over the coalfields as nightfall
Many fled hours beforehand, but approached.
S6 sunday, augusT 18, 2019 • • •
Hurricane camille
Heartbreak in
Massies Mill as
families faced
incredible loss
After chestnut blight wiped out trees in mini-boomtown,
Camille killed 23 and destroyed much of what remained
By BILL LOHMANN
Richmond Times-dispatch
MASSIES MILL — As he drove his
pickup truck through the community
where he grew up, Warren Raines re-
membered something he saw on the
television news about the destruction
caused by Hurricane Camille after it
stormed ashore in Mississippi on Aug.
17, 1969.
“They were talking about a man
finding his refrigerator like five blocks
from his home,” Raines said. “I told my
mother, ‘Have you ever heard of such a
thing?’ Not knowing that two days later
we were going to be hit by the same
storm, only worse.”
Soft-spoken and down-to-earth,
Raines, 64, has a matter-of-fact way of
telling the horrendous story of what hap-
pened to him and his family 50 years
ago.
Of how they were awakened in the
night by a caller alerting them the
nearby Tye River was out of its banks
and Massies Mill was flooding; how
the parents decided to drive to higher
ground but their station wagon stalled
in high water a short distance from their
home on Highway 56; how the whole
group of them — Raines’ parents, War-
ren and four of his siblings, as well as
four neighbor children — got out to walk
in the swift-moving and ever-deepening
water and were soon “knocked down
like bowling pins” and swept away.
And how he lost touch with the others
and grabbed hold of a willow tree as the
current carried him along, then climbed
up the trunk to an upper limb as the
water rose. The tree bent but never up-
rooted, and he held on for dear life for
the rest of the night as he dodged cows,
logs and automobiles — even a whole
house — floating by.
“My weeping willow tree was right
over in here,” said Raines, motioning
as he drove along Highway 56 near his
old homeplace. The tree was maybe 200
yards from where the river usually flows.
When morning light came, Raines,
14, was shivering, in shock and alone
— until he heard a voice call his name:
His 16-year-old brother was perched in
a nearby tree where he had saved him-
self and spent the night. The rest of their
family, though, was gone.
Two of the four neighbor children also
didn’t survive.
“We were a close family,” he said. “I
lost my childhood that night.”
Raines parked his truck and walked
to a short concrete bridge that spans the
Tye. His father had managed a business
selling spray materials and packing sup-
plies for fruit growers in a large building
near this spot. On that night 50 years be-
fore, the raging floodwaters picked up
the structure and set it sideways across
the bridge.
“It’s real serene, isn’t it?” said Raines,
peering down at the river, a few inches
deep and barely moving maybe 30 feet
below the bridge.
vvv
In the early part of the 20th century,
Massies Mill was a mini-boomtown,
largely because of the chestnut tim-
ber trade. For a time, there was even a
short-line railroad that connected Mas-
sies Mill, and the community had sev-
eral stores, a lumberyard and a bank. But
then chestnut blight wiped out the trees,
and Camille took care of much of the
rest. Twenty-three residents of Massies
Mill were killed.
Several ramshackle buildings aban-
doned after the storm still stand, as do a
number of homes and churches, includ-
ing Grace Episcopal, which was heavily
damaged but survived. The Rev. Marion
E. Kanour, the church’s rector, said the
parish “has a lot of its identity connected
to the flood,” including church members
who lost family in the storm. Some still
find it too painful to talk about, she said.
On that night, trees crashed into the
church and water poured in, pushing the
wooden pews into a pile at the front of
the sanctuary. A water stain about 7 feet
up on the paneled wall serves as a con-
stant reminder.
“We were a close family. I lost my childhood that night.”
64-year-old Warren Raines
Richmond Times-dispaTch Richmond Times-dispaTch • • • sunday, augusT 18, 2019 S7
5 0 y e a r s l at e r
Two stained-glass windows survived,
as did a mud-stained Bible still on dis-
play. A wooden lectern washed out of the
church but was discovered days later —
and 40 miles away — in a cornfield near
Wingina, east of where the Tye flows into
the James. The lectern was repaired and
is still used today.
And there is this:
The floodwaters of the Tye apparently
washed daffodil bulbs from upstream
and deposited them in a field next to
the church. “So every Easter, we get the
resurrection scene out there with all the
daffodils,” Kanour said. “It’s beautiful.”
When Kanour arrived in 2013, atten-
dance for Sunday services was about
a dozen. That’s grown to 35 to 40, plus
a similar number — and not the same
people — for community dinners every
Thursday night. The church has estab-
lished a transitional shelter for victims of
domestic violence and has voted to be-
come a sanctuary church to help undoc-
umented immigrants.
“We have a good heart, the congrega-
tion does,” Kanour said.
Every Aug. 19, the church commemo-
rates the grim anniversary, as its bell tolls
124 times for each of the victims who
died in Nelson County 50 years ago.
vvv
The cruel irony, Warren Raines says, is
that his family’s home was flooded and
damaged but remained intact. Had they
stayed inside instead of making a run for
it, they would have survived.
Despite all that happened, Raines was
drawn back to the place where he grew
up. After an unhappy period away, he re-
turned to live alone in the family home
for his senior year in high school, work-
ing part time at a nursery in Waynesboro ViRGiNia depaRtmeNt OF hiGhWaYs
to support himself.
His faith is how he survived every- ABOVE: The
thing, he said, and it’s also how he met Raines family
his wife, Sharon, when she began at- home (center)
tending the church he grew up in — sits surrounded
Jonesboro Baptist. They married the
spring after he graduated from high by mud and debris
school; ultimately opened an appliance in Massies Mill in
store in Lovingston; built a house in August 1969. Warren
Piney River, about 6 miles south of Mas- Raines and his
sies Mill; raised two children; and sold
the store. They are now retired. family left the home
He says several times that he’s “not during massive
out to be noticed,” but he’s been quoted flooding and rain
in articles and books and he patiently caused by the
and straightforwardly answers questions
remnants of Camille
about the saddest time in his life be-
cause, “If everybody keeps tight-lipped to get to higher
about what happened, nobody will ever ground. His parents,
know what happened.” two sisters and a
He acknowledges being more emo-
brother were among
tional about it now when he thinks
about it, but also “more amazed now by the 124 people killed
what happened 50 years ago than I was in the flooding and
then.” landslides. Had
At his church, where he volunteers they stayed on the
as caretaker of the cemetery where his
family is buried, standing at the tomb- second floor of the
stones for his parents and his siblings, house, they would
he recalled the funeral at the church for have all survived.
his parents, a sister and a brother a week
after the flood.
“To see four caskets lined up in there
was just more than you could handle,”
he said. His younger sister’s body wasn’t
found until after the funeral.
“We brought her out here about a
week later and had a graveside service
for her,” he said.
Raines wants people to know it wasn’t
just his family that had suffered. He
pointed out markers in the cemetery for
the Zirkles and Bryants and others who
lost loved ones. Over several ridges to
the east is another cemetery with a simi-
larly sad story, Oak Hill Baptist Church
Cemetery, where many of those who
died in the Davis Creek area are buried.
More than 50 perished there, including
about two dozen members of the Huff-
man family.
Raines’ wife’s mother was a Huffman,
and Sharon Raines was visiting a relative
on Davis Creek that weekend before Ca-
mille reached Virginia.
“They wanted her to stay a few more
days, but she came home Sunday,” War-
ren Raines said. “If she had stayed, she
would have been over there when all
that stuff was going on.”
BOB BROWN/times-dispatch BOB BROWN/times-dispatch
Warren Raines stands on a bridge over the Tye River in Massies Mill and tells how he survived the flash-flooding of Aug. 19-20, The Rev. Marion E. Kanour, rector of Grace Episcopal Church in Massies Mill, stands inside the historic structure and talks
1969, by clinging to a willow tree. His 16-year-old brother also survived by holding onto a tree during the night. The flooding about how the church survived the flooding from the hurricane. The stained-glass window beside her, which features an
washed their father’s business off its foundation and deposited it on the bridge (above). image of Noah, was dedicated in honor of the 124 men, women and children who were lost in Nelson County that August.
S8 SUNDAY, AUGUST 18, 2019 • • • RICHMOND TIMES-DISPATCH

HURRICANE CAMILLE

Deluge of water washed downstream

Storm runoff sent
from Rockbridge
down to Richmond
BY JOHN BOYER
Richmond Times-Dispatch
The creeks rose, and
the hillsides fell.
The great forces let
loose by Camille over
the mountains had to
go downhill and down-
river, and didn’t rest until
draining through the
heart of Richmond.
Even by a conserva-
tive estimate, the storm
unloaded over 100 bil-
lion gallons of water over
Nelson County alone.
Divided among its then-
population of approxi-
mately 12,000, it was
enough to fill at least
205,000 bathtubs per
person.
Water overwhelmed
the soil. During the night,
there were at least 5,000
places where the earth
lost its grip on the bed-
rock and tumbled down
hollows, mostly in the
central portion of Nelson
where rain was heaviest.
Those landslide scars
typically descended 300
to 600 feet, or one to two
football fields in length,
and 25 to 75 feet wide.
According to Anne
Witt, geohazards special-
ist for the Virginia Depart-
ment of Mines, Minerals
and Energy, those debris
flows had the consistency
of wet concrete and prob-
ably traveled downhill at
speeds exceeding 30 mph.
Hundreds and thou-
sands of years worth of
erosion happened in a
forecasters were ham-
pered by a lack of data
from upstream areas.
The Westham gauge
crested at 24.95 feet,
nearly 13 feet above
minor flood stage,
shortly after midnight on
Aug. 22.
At daybreak, the City
Locks gauge peaked at
28.6 feet, nearly 21 feet
above minor flood stage.
Between Richmond
and Manchester, water
hurtled through at a rate
of 222,000 cubic feet per
second.
Businesses suffered
disruption and damage,
but no deaths or injuries
occurred in the Rich-
mond area.
Traffic was choked off
as rising water closed
the Mayo Bridge and In-
terstate 95 at the Maury
Street exit.
Most of the loss was to
businesses in Shockoe
VIRGINIA DEPARTMENT OF HIGHWAYS Bottom and industry in
A group of people gathered on the banks of James River in Richmond to get a look at the raging floodwaters in South Richmond, but
August 1969, caused by Hurricane Camille miles upstream. water also invaded some
homes in Fulton Bottom.
In the pre-floodwall
301 Local flooding days, a system of dikes,
sandbags and pumps
James River (normal) protected parts of Rich-
Flooding (1969) mond, but floodwaters
entered anyway.
Floodwall (finished in 1994)
The city’s pumping
station at 17th and Dock
Br streets was abandoned
oa
d
St
re when it showed signs of
et failure. Foul floodwater
Ma
Ca
in
St
entered shops on Main
ry
St eet
r
95 Street by way of the sew-
ree ers and drains.
t
In an iconic photo-
195 graph, the flood level
lapped up to the steps of
301 Main Street Station.
The map at left shows The water gradually
the extent of flooding receded from Richmond
e
idg

et

single night. on Aug. 23, then dropped

tre

along the James River

Br

tS
r

The smallest creeks below flood stage the fol-

ste

in Richmond following
21s

t
he

subsided almost as lowing day.

ree

Camille. Based on a 1972

e
nc
idge

Bridg

St

quickly as they rose, carv- With a note of relief,

Ma

Richmond Times-Dis-
th
r
Lee B

25

ing wild new channels patch map that com- some articles fixated on
Mayo

through deep deposits pared the Camille and the “once in 100 years”
of mud and sand, past Agnes floods, today’s inundation and the
twisted trees stripped of e map shows some fea- “thousand-year” deluge
nu
bark and boulders loos- Ave upstream.
es tures that did not exist
Co

ened from the hills above. m yet. Richmond’s flood- But flood and rain-
m

m
Se
m

wall, completed in 1994 fall recurrence statistics

erc

❖❖❖
eR

at a cost of $143 million, don’t work in such a lit-

oa

By daybreak, flash is designed to protect eral way, and the next de-
d

flooding on the creeks et cade would provide such

gave way to unprece-
dented river flooding.
When the Tye River
is behaving normally, it
gathers the scenic creeks
that tumble down The
Priest and Chimney Rock,
then absorbs the Piney
River and Buffalo River
from Amherst County,
and averages 360 cubic
feet per second of water
into the James River at
Norwood.
But early on Aug. 20,
1969, engorged with run-
off, the discharge was
200,000 cubic feet per
second. Now at twice
the rate of Niagara Falls,
the Tye battered away
its highway and railroad
crossings.
Across from Norwood,
witnesses stopped to gaze
at the bizarre sight of the
overpowered James River
flowing backward toward
Buffalo Station.
In similar fashion, the
Rockfish River swelled
Stre up to a 41-foot level at
ll an example.
Hu the City Locks gauge. It
would have blocked Ca- A 1971 state report
t noted that a James River
ree mille’s flooding, which
y St flood of that stature “will
ur topped out at 28.6 feet
Ma 95 there. probably not be equaled
or exceeded more than
ten times every 1,000
years, although such a
flood could occur again
tomorrow.”
Indeed, a bigger flood
301 resulted from the wide-
spread soaking of Tropi-
cal Storm Agnes in June
1972. The City Locks
gauge crested about 8
BILL LANE feet beyond Camille’s
Main Street Station. record.
Agnes proved much
Rising waters more damaging, but it
took far fewer lives than
The James River began MEASURING THE JAMES (City Locks gauge, feet above mean sea level) CRESTS Camille did in Virginia.
rising in Richmond on 35’ The repeat destruc-
Aug. 20, 1969, going from tion of Agnes and the
normal levels to major 30’ 1985 Election Day floods
flood stage in 36 hours MAJOR FLOOD STAGE spurred on Richmond’s
as Camille’s rainfall ran 25’
floodwall project, which
downstream. Early on was completed in 1994.
Aug. 22, the river topped There hasn’t been a
20’ MODERATE FLOOD STAGE
out at 28.6 feet at the major river flood in Rich-
City Locks gauge, located mond in recent decades,
CAMILLE PREDICTION

to unprecedented lev-
els with everything that
fell from Wintergreen
and Afton down to Davis
at Great Shiplock Park. 15’ but that doesn’t mean
It ended up lower than we’ll be in the clear until
initial predictions, and 10’ 2069 or 2085.
water receded over the MINOR FLOOD STAGE
The chance of seeing a
AGNES 1972
JUAN 1985

Creek, then smothered next two days. In 1972, Camille-like river level is
CAMILLE

the town of Howardsville
on its way into the James.
The flood disaster
wasn’t limited to Nelson,
or the James River.
To the east, the down-
pours that hit the Pied-
mont region caused
some of the earliest re-
ports of flash flooding to
reach Richmond news-
rooms. Swollen creeks
carried away cars and
trucks in Louisa and
Caroline County, and
blocked Interstate 95 at
Ladysmith.
The dam holding Lake
Louisa gave way, re-
leasing a 20-foot surge
of water into the North
Anna River.
To the north, down-
town Waynesboro filled
with 8 feet of water from
the South River.
On the western side
of the Blue Ridge, Rock-
5’
flooding from Tropical
Storm Agnes set the
0’
modern record at 36.5 6 p.m. 6 a.m.
feet. 1969 Aug. 20 Aug. 21
bridge County was hard- James River like Scotts-
est hit. ville and Bremo Bluff saw
At Buena Vista, the two floods: a flash inun-
Maury River carried 170 dation from the overnight
times its normal flow and rain, then the river itself
spread across the down- rising as runoff arrived
town business district. from upstream.
The small city of 6,400 At various times and
people suffered triple places, the floodwater
the damage as the city of was clay-red, yellowish-
Richmond. brown, or streaked with
Water rapidly invaded whitecaps. It carried
homes between Buena scraps of houses, bales
Vista and Glasgow, where of hay, steel drums con-
the Maury joins the taining DDT and pesti-
James, claiming 23 lives. cides, a church lectern,
The river reached its tractor trailers, packs of
highest mark since 1877 cigarettes and cans of
in Lynchburg, but dam- coffee, unpicked apples
age there was much less and peaches, family heir-
severe. looms, dead livestock,
Towns directly on the leaking gasoline. And per-
6 p.m. 6 a.m. 6 p.m. 6 a.m. 6 p.m.
Aug. 21 Aug. 22 Aug. 22 Aug. 23 Aug. 23
haps some of the missing
victims.
The sign for the Rose-
land Post Office was re-
portedly recovered at the
mouth of the James River
in Hampton Roads, about
150 miles away.
❖❖❖
Camille caused Rich-
mond’s worst flood since
1771, though it would
be overshadowed by an-
other one less than three
years later.
In contrast with the
Nelson County flash
floods, which no one
wanted to see and many
didn’t see coming at all,
the Richmond flood took
roughly 1 percent in any
given year, though the
6 a.m. 6 p.m. impacts will hopefully be
Aug. 24 Aug. 24 reduced next time.
❖❖❖
on more of a spectacle Damage from Camille
atmosphere. was estimated at $116
The sight of the James million in 1969 dollars,
River at its highest level though that does not in-
in anyone’s memory clude the cost of rescues,
attracted traffic jams relief work or long-term
and crowds of onlook- losses.
ers along Libby Hill, Adjusted for inflation,
Gamble’s Hill and win- it was at least an $800
dows of downtown office million disaster for the
buildings. state.
On Aug. 21, as the Floodwater damaged
James swelled through or destroyed 133 bridges,
Columbia and Carters- 25 miles of primary high-
ville, weather service pre- ways and 175 miles of
dictions called for levels secondary roads, mostly
as high as 36 feet at City in Nelson and neighbor-
Locks and 29 feet at Wes- ing counties.
tham on the following VDOT restored most
day. routes by October 1969,
Ultimately, the flood but major bridge work
wasn’t that extreme, but continued into 1971.
Richmond Times-dispaTch • • • sunday, augusT 18, 2019 S9

5 0 y e a r s l at e r

Waters looked how sea did in

ther on U.S. 29 and became
stranded on the same hill.
The Spencers’ crumpled
house was found several miles
down the Rockfish, depos-

‘The Ten Commandments’

By BILL LOHMANN
Richmond Times-dispatch
WOODS MILL — Dark
clouds shrouded the moun-
tains and a steady rain was fall-
ing at Pauline Spencer’s home.
The 92-year-old Spencer
greeted her visitors, as well as
several other members of her
family, including her brother
Bill Harris, 86, who had gath-
ered to talk about that night in
August 1969 when her house
washed off its rock founda-
tion and was carried down the
Rockfish River.
They were asked if they get
nervous when it rains hard.
“Not if we’re on top of the
hill, we don’t,” Harris said.
Spencer does indeed live on
higher ground now, next door
to a church, about a mile up
the hill on U.S. 29 from where
her other house stood. It’s
worth noting that this is almost
the exact spot where she and
her husband, Jack, fled that
night when the rains fell and
the floods came and they very
nearly didn’t make it out alive.
In essence, she got here and
never left.
“That night I sat right there
in the truck, right in the mid-
dle of that road,” Spencer said
with a laugh, pointing toward
U.S. 29, which is now a four-
lane divided highway but then
was still two lanes. She kept
worrying about other traffic,
but there really wasn’t any as
the highway was blocked at
various points by floodwaters,
rendering it impassable from
either direction.
The Spencers might not
have made it out had it not
been for their neighbor across
the road, Forrest E. “Shady”
Wood. He’d gotten up in the
wee hours of the morning,
awakened by his dogs barking
behind his house, which was
adjacent to his convenience
store, Shady’s Place, on the
west side of U.S. 29. (Wood’s
grandfather nicknamed him
“Shady” as a child because he
spent a lot of time beneath a
shade tree, said his son, For-
rest E. Wood Jr.)
Upon going outside, Wood
discovered water from a
nearby branch of Davis Creek
was out of its banks, and the
rising water was alarming the
dogs. He let them loose and
thought of the Spencers, his
neighbors across the highway.
Their home was in a particu-
larly precarious positions on
BOB BROWN/times-dispatch
Pauline Spencer, 92, stands outside the house built by Mennonite volunteers after she and her husband
lost their home in flooding from Camille. Their crumpled house was found several miles down the
Rockfish River, deposited along with the remains of several other homes, some of whose occupants did
not survive.
the family an indelible impres-
sion of how the churning wa-
ters of the overflowing creeks
and Rockfish appeared as
they turned the area known as
Woods Mill — where Route 6
heads west from U.S. 29 — into
something only seen on the big
screen.
“I remember my daddy say-
ing it looked like how the sea
did in ‘The Ten Command-
ments,’” she said.
Morris and her brother,
Jackie Spencer, had left home
and were working out of the
area. They didn’t even hear
about what happened until the
next afternoon as phone lines
Ebb & Flow owner Lindsay Jarrett Smith was told that nearby and nearly all communica-
residents climbed atop the roof of the building to survive the tion from the county had been
flooding in 1969. knocked out. Even then, they
didn’t know how bad it was
until they were stopped at a
“When my husband did the renovation and roadblock and had to walk part
of the way along Route 6 to get
we took the walls off … he said there was mud to their parents’ home — which
wasn’t there when their old
packed into the studs about 6 feet high.” home site came into view.
Lindsay Jarrett Smith, owner of gifts and antique shop ebb & Flow “Your heart sort of goes up
in your throat,” Jackie Spencer
said.
Eventually, they made their
Muddy Creek, where Davis leave, and they drove their way south on U.S. 29 where
Creek joined it after flow- pickup truck up the hill. Pau- they found their parents.
ing beneath the highway. Just line Spencer didn’t look back “We were two happy souls
below there, the merged creeks and see her two-story house when we saw them,” Morris
flowed into the Rockfish. wash away, but her husband said.
Wood called and alerted did, said their daughter, Ruby They all ate bananas for a
Jack Spencer, who got his wife Ann Spencer Morris. few days, as a truck carrying
up and told her they had to Jack, who is deceased, left bananas couldn’t go any far-
ited along with the remains of
several other homes, some of
whose occupants did not sur-
vive. Even farther down, around
Schuyler, someone found two
black-and-white photographs
of children, recognized them
and delivered the pictures of
her son and daughter to Pau-
line. The photos were cleaned
up and reframed and are dis-
played in her living room.
Woods Mill looks a lot like it
did before the storm, just up-
dated. The huge piles of trees
and other debris that washed
down from the mountains into
the Rockfish and were dammed
at the bridges along U.S. 29 and
Route 6 are long gone. U.S. 29 is
four lanes all the way through.
Shady’s Place was destroyed
that night, but the Woods re-
built within a year, and now
Forrest Wood Jr. and his wife,
Brenda, run the place.
“It’s a prime location,” For-
rest Wood Jr. said. “I see people
from everywhere.”
Around the corner on Route
6 is an old stone building that
shows up in many archival
photos from the Camille era.
At one time, it was a gas sta-
tion and country store. During
Camille, it was under water,
though not completely, as cur-
rent owner Lindsay Jarrett
Smith has been told residents
of a nearby house climbed atop
the roof of the building to sur-
vive the flooding.
Smith and her husband, Jus-
tin, acquired the building in
2014 and gutted the interior
two years later.
“When my husband did the
renovation and we took the
walls off ... he said there was
mud packed into the studs
about 6 feet high,” she said.
The building is now Ebb &
Flow, a gifts and antique shop
within 50 yards of the Rock-
fish. Smith is from California
and had never heard of Camille
until she moved to the Char-
lottesville area. A framed pho-
tograph on the wall near the
entrance shows Woods Mill in
the aftermath of Camille, which
remains a regular topic of con-
versation among locals who
“come in and volunteer their
experiences,” Smith said.
Back up the hill, Pauline
Spencer is still living in the
house that was built by volun-
teers with the Mennonite Di-
saster Service, which swept into
Nelson County soon after the
flood and performed one good
deed after another. The Spen-
cers were living in their new
home less than a year after the
storm.
“Oh, I love them,” she said
of the Mennonites. “They’re
the nicest people.”

Eight bodies recovered after storm have never been identified

By BILL LOHMANN
Richmond Times-dispatch
Fifty years later, one
of the more puzzling as-
pects of what happened
in August 1969 in Nelson
County is this:
Eight victims of the
storm, whose bodies
were recovered, remain
unidentified.
No one claimed them
despite nationwide ef-
forts to find out who they
were.
Female, late 40s to
early 50s, moderate length
brown wavy hair found 1
mile below Woods Mill
There are several Ca-
mille-related memorials
around the county in-
cluding a stone monu-
ment at the courthouse
and markers at Nelson
County Wayside on US
29 north of Lovingston
and at Massies Mill. On
display in the Nelson
County Historical Soci-
ety’s Oakland Museum
near Lovingston is a list of
all of the victims in Nel-
son County: 108 county
residents and eight oth-
ers who were visiting or
traveling through on the
night of the flood.
Then there are the
eight who remain un-
known, brief descriptions
listed at the museum ex-
hibit (such as the one
above) under the heading
of “Unidentified Travel-
ers.” Local officials be-
lieve none of the eight
is among the 33 victims
who were missing but
never found.
“They did everything
they could,” said Ed Tin-
sley, a retired Virginia
State Police trooper who
worked at a makeshift
morgue at a Lovingston
funeral home where bod-
ies were identified. The
task of identifying bodies
fell to three local physi-
cians, a pathologist from
the state medical examin-
er’s office in Roanoke and
a dentist. Autopsies were
performed in a tent set up
behind the funeral home.
The process today
would be somewhat eas-
ier than it was in 1969 be-
fore the advent of DNA
analysis. Investigators
also were dealing with
victims from rural areas,
such as Davis Creek,
where extended families
lived in close proxim-
ity to one another, but
someone a mile away
might have no idea of ev-
eryone who lived in the
households.
“You didn’t have peo-
ple who could report
members of their fam-
ily gone because there
wasn’t anybody left,” said
Tinsley, the longest-serv-
ing trooper in state police
history with 48 years of
Retired state trooper Ed Tinsley, 82, shows off an album
of photos he took in 1969 as he sits in his Amherst
County home and talks about the death and destruction
from flash flooding in nearby Nelson County from the
remnants of Camille.
service and the last survi-
vor among the team that
worked to identify bodies
after Camille.
There also was the
matter of people from
outside Nelson travel-
ing through the county
on the night or morn-
ing of Aug. 19-20, par-
ticularly along the busy
U.S. 29 corridor; several
travelers whose bod-
ies were recovered were
identified, but were there
more? Tinsley and oth-
ers have wondered if the
eight included migrant
workers? Or perhaps they
were traveling with others
who also were killed but
whose bodies were not
BOB BROWN/times-dispatch
found?
Because of the violent
nature of the flood, bod-
ies were battered and
stripped of clothing and
rings, making easy identi-
fication impossible.
The victims’ finger-
prints were circulated
among law enforcement
agencies nationwide, ac-
cording to a 1975 Associ-
ated Press story. Letters
containing dental dia-
grams and descriptions of
the victims were mailed
to dentists around the
country, asking for their
help, the AP story said.
Media outlets were asked
to publicize the effort.
No one stepped for-
Descriptions of the
unidentified
“Female, approximately 70
years old, long white hair,
found at Buford island be-
tween howardsville and
Wingina”
“Female, 35 to 40 years old,
well groomed brown hair
found at Woods mill”
“Female, late 40s to early
50s, moderate length brown
wavy hair found 1 mile below
Woods mill”
“male, late 50s stocky dark
complected, partially bald,
black hair found on albemarle
shore at howardsville.”
“male, approximately 17, found
below schuyler”
“male, approximately 12 to 14
years old found one-half mile
below southern RR bridge”
“Female, approximately 10
years old long blonde wavy
hair found 2 miles above
howardsville”
“Female, approximately 6 to 8
years old, found on an island
above Bremo power plant”
Virginia state police reports from
trooper ed tinsley
ward then or since with
information that would
solve any of the eight
mysteries.
Four of the eight were
estimated to be between
the ages of 6 and 17. The
rest were adults. Some
were found near the
Woods Mill area near
where U.S. 29 crosses
state Route 6 and the
Rockfish River. Others
were found farther down
the Rockfish or along the
James River.
Autopsies revealed sev-
eral of the victims had
recently consumed red
beans, leading authori-
ties to believe they might
be members of the same
family or at least travel-
ing together, but that hy-
pothesis so far has not led
to identification.
The bodies of the eight
eventually were sent to
the Office of the Chief
Medical Examiner in
Richmond. They eventu-
ally were cremated and
their ashes buried in un-
marked graves at Maury
Cemetery in South Rich-
mond, according to a
2009 article in The News
& Advance of Lynchburg.
These eight passed
from this earth without
anyone to acknowledge
them by name. Remark-
ably and sadly, 50 years
later, their status remains
unchanged as no one has
come forward to claim
them as family or friends.
No one missed them?
“Maybe,” Tinsley said,
“they didn’t have any-
body to miss them.”
S10 Sunday, auguSt 18, 2019 • • • Richmond timeS-diSpatch

Hurricane camille

Loss of family, friends still stings

W
hen the leaves fall
in Nelson County,
their absence
reveals the scars
on the mountains, scars
born of the lethal and
destructive mudslides
wrought by the remnants
of Hurricane Camille.
A half-century has
passed
since the
record
rainfall
killed 124
people in
Nelson
JAY County on
STRAFFORD the night
of Aug. 19-
20, 1969.
But for the dwindling
number of those who sur-
vived and those of us who
lost family and friends,
the memories never fade.
The summer of 1969
was supposed to be a gap
season for me between
my high school gradua-
tion in June and my col-
lege entry in September. I
spent much of that time in
the county’s Rockfish Val-
ley on my maternal grand-
parents’ farm.
My grandparents, par-
ents and brother and I
spent the Fourth of July
at my granddad’s moun-
tain camping cabin. Ten
days later, my parents and
brother returned to Ohio;
that evening, my grand-
father was unexpectedly
diagnosed with congestive
heart failure.
After a week in the
hospital, he came home,
but his health did not;
my grandmother and I
worked to maintain the
farm.
On Aug. 10, I returned
to Ohio to attend my
three-day freshman ori-
entation, which began
the next day. But on Aug.
21, the hammer of loss
descended.
While Mom was cook-
ing dinner (I can’t remem-
Logs and boulders littered an area after just missing a house (left) when mudslides triggered by Camille devastated
Nelson County 50 years ago. The record rainfall on the night of Aug. 19-20, 1969, killed 124 people.
ber what), I was watching
the NBC Nightly News
when a map of Nelson
County appeared on the
screen and one of the an-
chors reported deadly
flooding in rural Virginia.
“Mom, come here and
look at this,” I shouted
from the living room.
In suburban Cleve-
land, Aug. 21 was just an-
other sunny summer day,
with the scent of freshly
mowed grass in the air.
But in Nelson County,
residents faced staggering
losses from the has-been
hurricane, which stalled
over the county and in-
undated it with at least 27
inches of rain in six hours.
Especially stricken was
the Davis Creek area just
south of the intersection
of U.S. 29 and state Route
6, where more than 20
members of the extended
Huffman family perished.
My grandparents, their
phone service out, and
isolated by the flooding,
could not communicate
with us. Eventually, my
mom was able to con-
Virginia DeparTmenT of HigHwayS
stand grew long, Mary
kept her cool while also
helping customers keep
theirs in the summer heat.
Also lost was Jimmy
Megginson, 36, who lived
on Route 6 near my grand-
parents’ farm and had
occasionally worked for
them. His body was one of
the 32 never recovered.
The hammer fell again
with my grandfather’s
death on Sept. 4. Return-
ing for his funeral, we
were struck by the physi-
cal destruction — espe-
BoB Brown/TimeS-DiSpaTcH cially at Woods Mill, where
A tombstone for some of the Huffman family who died in a bridge over the Rockfish
the flooding from Camille stands in the Oak Hill Baptist River and a stretch of U.S.
Church Cemetery in Nelson County. The family lived in 29 had been obliterated,
the Davis Creek area and lost more than 20 members. and across Route 6 from
my grandparents’ farm,
tact friends who assured old Mary Martin Schur, a where an ancient weeping
her that her parents were recent bride and a secre- willow that had provided
unhurt. tary for Virginia Electric & shade at a fishing hole was
But others were not. Power Co. uprooted.
Our cousin Ed Ewing, 60, Only a few years in the The widespread grief
and his wife, Louise, 47 — past, Mary had held down at so many deaths dealt
who had recently moved the concession stand at a body blow. One of the
back to the county after Van Riper’s Lake — a pop- pastors at Papa’s funeral
many years — were swept ular swimming spot — noted that his sorrow over
from their small home and had sold me countless Camille contributed to the
and drowned. blue snow cones. When death of a man who had
So, too, was 25-year- the line at the concession lived all but two of his 71
years in Nelson County.
The combination of per-
sonal and community
grief was overwhelming,
as folks — simultaneously
stunned by loss and de-
termined to surmount
it — acknowledged that
their lives were forever
changed.
Although I now reside
in Florida after 40-plus
years in Richmond, some
images remain clear: the
waters of the Rockfish
River, normally a creek
with ambition, halfway up
the main pasture at my
grandparents’ farm; the
abandoned refrigerator
that remained in a field
off state Route 151 across
Brent’s Mountain for at
least two decades.
Also indelible are
the memories of faces:
my grandmother’s, re-
mote and drawn, as she
mourned for her hus-
band and her community;
and in the years after the
floods, the fear etched on
others whenever a heavy
rain beat down on their
roofs.
Like the scars on Craw-
ford’s Knob and Three
Ridges and The Pilot —
where landslides took
out trees and left red-clay
gashes — the wounds of
the heart never fully heal.
The communal grief
of Camille carried weight
greater than that of any
individual’s bereavement.
But in a strange way, mu-
tual mourning also gave
birth to mutual solace.
And although neither
time, nor love, nor mem-
ory can erase the pain, the
sharing of sorrow can mit-
igate it, and produce — in
the words of the old hymn
often sung in the coun-
try churches of Nelson
County — the comfort of
“the ties that bind.”
Jay Strafford is a retired
writer and editor for The
Times-Dispatch.

Surprise disaster
fatigue, underestimating a storm Today: the nWS monitors precipi- duce track errors to 75 miles at 24
based on previous experience with tation using three neXRad radar hours by 1974, but it took until the
another, and socioeconomic vulner- sites in Virginia: at Sterling, at Wake- late 1990s before forecasts were

inspired today’s
ability. in response to social science
research, the nWS continues to
work on simplifying the number of
field in Sussex county and from routinely that skillful.
south of Blacksburg in Floyd county. Today: now, a 24-hour track fore-
among other benefits, they provide
cast averages a much smaller error

improved weather
watches, warnings and advisories,
while clarifying maps, graphics and
wording.
accurate rainfall estimates for areas
of 40 miles. a five-day track forecast
where measurements aren’t (or
is now more accurate than a two-
can’t be) reported.

technology
day forecast was in the 1980s. inten-
sity forecasts haven’t improved as
Observations Satellite rapidly in recent years.
1969: airports reported hourly read- 1969: polar-orbiting satellites
By JOHN BOyER ings, but information from outlying
areas had to be phoned in to the
beamed down low-resolution cloud
photographs once or twice per day,
Hurricane Classification
Richmond times-dispatch
Weather Bureau. Some weather of- but they showed nothing unusual 1969: though the national hurri-
Camille’s floods couldn’t just be written off as an unprecedented fices were closed or lightly staffed about camille after it made landfall cane center knew that camille was
weather anomaly. The disaster also exposed shortcomings in pre- at night, and handed off to other and couldn’t operate at night. an heading toward the gulf coast with
dictions, observations and warnings. regions. the entire system was too experimental geostationary satel- life-threatening force, they had trou-
Much of our modern meteorological technology existed in 1969, thinly spread, spatially and tem- lite did detect camille’s strengthen- ble getting the public to understand
but only in very rudimentary form. The lessons of Camille played a porally, to show that a major flood ing trend late on aug. 19, but it was why it would be no ordinary hurri-
significant role in the scientific and communications advances of was impending. and once camille’s only known after the fact. commu- cane. in response, then-nhc director
the 1970s. floods and landslides hit, telephones nication systems weren’t in place Robert Simpson and engineer her-
A moisture-laden tropical remnant moving into Virginia would were knocked out and critical infor- to send those images to national or bert Saffir devised a scale based on
now be known of for several days, if not a week ahead of its ar- mation was very hard to share. local forecasters in real time. that wind intensity that debuted in 1973.
rival. Localized storms and flash floods can still be tough to predict Today: every nWS office has fore- technology became operational in
more than a few hours in advance, but our modern monitoring the mid-to-late 1970s. Today: the Saffir-Simpson scale
casters on duty, day or night. auto- is a familiar part of our hurricane
systems are much more resilient and alerts are now more likely to mated weather stations, rain gauges
reach those who need them. Today: the goeS-16 geostationary coverage, but meteorologists are
and river gauges send back live data satellite can give forecasters (and
Today, Nelson County is the southernmost zone in the area of increasingly aware of its potential
through a variety of channels. that the public) images that refresh as
responsibility for the National Weather Service office in Sterling, to be misleading. threats like storm
information can be supplemented often as every minute, plus lightning
Loudoun County. surge and inland flooding do not cor-
with sensors from highway depart- data.
“Anytime we have the remnants of a tropical system we’re on ments, universities and backyard
relate to the category 1-to-5 scale. a
high alert because there’s so much moisture involved with those weather stations.
perceived weakening based on wind
systems,” said Chris Strong, warning coordination meteorologist speeds can lead to a false sense of
for NWS Sterling. “We’re certainly a lot better off than we were in
Computer models security when it comes to the dead-
Camille, both in terms of our forecasting capability and our com- Radar 1969: due to limitations in comput- lier water-related hazards. the nhc
munication capability.” ing power and a lack of observations began issuing separate warnings for
The neighboring NWS office based in Blacksburg, which covers 1969: most of the country’s radar to input, the primitive models of the storm surge in 2017.
flood-prone southwestern Virginia, trains its staff by studying the stations were along the atlantic day could only attempt to show the
latest science and reviewing historic storms. coast, gulf coast and midwest, but movement of large-scale features
“We talk about a potential worst-case scenario? It’s not an EF-5 that left a large gap through appala- like highs and lows. thunderstorms Hurricane Naming
tornado,” said Phil Hysell of NWS Blacksburg. “What we focus on chia where camille suddenly inten- like those in the camille disaster
primarily is a significant and catastrophic flooding event, and we sified on the night of aug. 19, 1969. 1969: From 1953 to 1978, all atlantic
were far too small to resolve. storms received exclusively female
go to Camille.” Virginia was only partially covered
Here’s a comparison of the state of meteorology, then and now. by weather radars, and they could Today: Forecasters now have a names chosen by u.S. forecasters.
do little more than show the outline vast toolkit of global and regional camille was selected in advance
of precipitation. a radar station in weather models, and some special- for the 1969 list, inspired by the
Washington detected the northern ized just for hurricanes. today’s high- daughter of John hope, the late hur-
Warning dissemination — the forerunner of today’s “noaa
Weather Radio” — were only in very edge of camille’s rain, while a more est-resolution models can now make ricane forecaster eventually made
1969: most local radio and television limited use. the success of the new distant radar in pittsburgh only saw out individual thunderstorms, and famous by appearances on the
stations signed off by about 1 a.m. orleans station during camille was the towering tops of the storms. updates arrive at least every hour. a Weather channel. the name camille,
announcers usually relayed forecasts cited as a reason for expanding that Richmond airport had an obsolete new model under development aims like other disastrous hurricanes,
issued by the Weather Bureau (now, network in the 1970s. World War ii-era surplus radar that to predict and map out river and was stricken and will never be used
the nWS), but some gulf coast wasn’t powerful enough to show stream inundation across the u.S. again. in 1969 and throughout the
Today: in this era of ubiquitous 1970s, the national organization for
stations repeated outdated infor- what was happening over nelson
mobile technology — smartphones,
county. Women advocated for the end of
mation in the run-up to camille’s
landfall. even if a warning had been
social media, rolling television cov- Hurricane Forecasts the all-female naming system.
erage, direct alerts from localities in response to the surprise flood,
issued in Virginia on the night of — the main disconnect between most of the gaps in the radar net- 1969: during the 1960s, the aver- Today: Six rotating lists of alter-
the flood, it wouldn’t have reached warnings and people seeking safety work were filled by the late 1970s. age hurricane track error was about nating male and female hurricane
most of the public. the first state- is often human nature. issues in- a radar station at Volens in halifax 400 nautical miles for 72 hours in names are curated by a committee
ment about the heavy rain was is- clude confusing weather terminol- county, covered central Virginia from the future, and 125 miles at 24 hours. representing nations all along the
sued at 3:39 a.m. VhF radio stations ogy, conflicting information between 1977 until 1995, when the modern in the wake of camille, the national atlantic and caribbean. Storms are
run directly by the Weather Bureau sources, false alarms, warning neXRad system came online. hurricane center set a goal to re- not named after individuals.
Richmond Times-dispaTch
A U.S. Marines helicopter waited near Rockfish in August 1969 as a group (left) brought up one of the 124
people killed in Nelson County by Camille’s flooding and landslides.
Vietnam pilot recalls
devastation as mission
turned to body recovery
By BILL LOHMANN
Richmond Times-dispatch
Little more than a year
earlier, Army helicopter
pilot Douglas Nelms had
been flying missions in
Vietnam. Now, in August
1969, he was steering his
Huey, a military helicop-
ter, across the pretty green
countryside of the central
Virginia Piedmont from
Fort Belvoir in Northern
Virginia toward Nelson
County, which had been
slammed by the remnants
of Hurricane Camille a few
days earlier.
He didn’t know quite
what to expect, but when
he skimmed over the hills
and a got a look at what
Camille had wrought, his
mind flashed back to the
jungles of Vietnam after an
air raid.
“Total devastation,” he
said.
It reminded him of the
“Operation Arc Light”
raids in Vietnam in which
B-52 bombers would
“drop their gazillion-
pound bombs and just
wipe out swaths of the
jungle,” he said. “That’s
what this area looked like.
These mudslides came
down and just wiped ev-
erything out. The mud-
slides started up in the
mountains … and just
seemed to go on forever.
Looked like big, wide ski
runs, except instead of
snow it was mud.”
The military had been
called in to help with
search and recovery and
to deliver supplies to hard-
to-reach areas in the foot-
hills of the rural county,
cut off when roads were
washed out by the storms.
In a rare bit of good for-
tune at an otherwise grim
time, a four-lane, U.S. 29
bypass had recently been
completed around the
town of Lovingston, giv-
ing authorities a perfect
site for a command cen-
ter and for landing aircraft
brought in to assist. The
northbound lanes were
used for fixed-wing air-
craft, such as when Gov.
Mills E. Godwin, who
made several visits, flew
in; the southbound for
helicopters. With all of
the takeoffs and landings
every day, U.S. 29 became
one of the busiest air strips
in Virginia in the days after
Camille.
“They started calling it
Lovingston International,”
said Bar Delk, a recent col-
lege graduate at the time
who had grown up in Lov-
ingston and was one of
the many local volunteers
who helped in the after-
math. He also was a new
Army officer, having been
commissioned as a second
lieutenant the weekend
Douglas Nelms before Camille hit.
says his Vietnam When Nelms and other
military pilots arrived,
War experience
their primary jobs were
was helpful during body recovery, not rescue,
hurricane recovery as it quickly became ap-
efforts in Nelson parent within a day or two
after the storm that none
County.
of the missing would be
found alive.
The helicopters would
stack up on the high-
“There was way and then one by one
would be dispatched
no rhyme when calls would come
or reason in that another body had
been found. Not being fa-
why these miliar with the area, the
pilots would be partnered
people died. with locals who knew the
They were landscape.
“Most of the times
just living when we went in, we had
somebody in the back say-
their lives. ing, ‘Turn up here to the
left and turn at that little
A family is creek,’” recalled Nelms,
sitting there now 76, whose official
duties at that time had
watching TV been flying military brass
around Washington.
or listening “We’d find someplace
to the radio we could either land [but]
… sometimes we couldn’t
and suddenly land because the skids
would sink into the mud,”
their house is Nelms said in a phone in-
terview from his home in
being swept Fairfax. “If you couldn’t
down the hill land the helicopter, you
had to keep it at a very low
and they all hover, low enough so they
could put the body in, but
die.” not so low you’d get in-
Douglas Nelms, army volved with debris, tree
helicopter pilot, 76, who is limbs. It was hairy.”
retired and lives in Fairfax
His Vietnam experience
was a great help when it
came to maneuvering into
confined areas, which
was the case back along
Helicopters lined
up along U.S. 29 in
Lovingston during
search-and-rescue
operations after
Camille in August
1969. The military
also delivered
supplies to hard-
to-reach areas
of rural Nelson
County. BROwER YORk FROM THE NELSON COUNTY HiSTORiCAL SOCiETY COLLECTiON
5 0 y e a r s l at e r
Rip pAYNE
COURTESY OF DOUGLAS NELMS
narrow creek beds or in
mountain hollows.
“It didn’t make it any
less dangerous,” he said,
“but at least we had the
experience of being able
to get into and out of tight
spots.”
Of course, there was this
major difference between
flying in Nelson and flying
in wartime Vietnam:
“It’s easier to land when
nobody’s shooting at you.”
All in all, though, Nelms
said, “the guys who were
really the heroes” were the
ones searching through
the water and mud and
piles of debris for bod-
ies. They were primar-
ily local, some as young
as teens, looking for their
neighbors.
Which brings up an-
other comparison to Viet-
nam. There, Nelms said,
death was not unexpected.
“That didn’t make it
any less horrible,” he said,
“but it didn’t catch you by
surprise.
“But here, we were deal-
ing with a group of peo-
ple who had no idea that
was going to happen. It
made no sense. There was
no rhyme or reason why
these people died. They
were just living their lives.
A family is sitting there
watching TV or listening
to the radio and suddenly
their house is being swept
down the hill and they all
die.
“We were all used to
death,” he said of the mili-
tary pilots brought in to
help after Camille, “but
just not in that context.”
• • • sunday, augusT 18, 2019 S11
Mennonites
spent two years
helping Nelson
County rebuild
Edwin Peachey (left), a Mennonite from Pennsylvania,
talks with disaster worker Mike Lanigan (center) and
C. Milton Jackson of the Red Cross about the home being
built for Edward Bowling (third from left) in Massies Mill.
By BILL LOHMANN
Richmond Times-dispatch
After the world came
crashing down on Nel-
son County, the Menno-
nites showed up. Scores of
them. They searched for
the missing, they shoveled
mud out of businesses,
they rebuilt homes.
They were by no means
the only outside volunteers
who came to help, but
they arrived in huge num-
bers — as many as 150
were there in the first days
after the disaster, accord-
ing to “Roar of the Heav-
ens,” a 2006 book by Stefan
Bechtel about Hurricane
Camille — and they kept
coming.
“We owe a debt to those
folks, who spent two years
rebuilding our commu-
nity,” said Dick Whitehead,
a volunteer at the Nelson
County Historical Society
and one of the organiza-
tion’s primary archivists of
Camille photographs and
related stories.
They were part of the
Mennonite Disaster Ser-
vice, a volunteer network
of Anabaptist churches
that has been respond-
ing to disasters to help re-
build communities since
the 1950s. Those who ar-
rived in Nelson came from
around the United States
and even Canada, but
many, like Joseph Beery
and Joe Shank, lived in the
surrounding area.
Beery, now 95, and
Shank, now 84, were dairy
farmers who lived near
Dayton, west of Harrison-
burg. They also are Old
Order Mennonites, mean-
ing they eschew some
modern conveniences,
such as automobiles, but
they are serious about their
faith — and part of what
they believe is the impor-
tance of following bibli-
cal teachings to love your
neighbor.
The mission is simple,
Shank said: Help people
overcome whatever hard-
ship they’ve experienced
and “get back to as normal
a life as they can.”
“Why wouldn’t we like
to do that?” he said.
When Beery was asked
why he was involved in
something like this, there
was a long pause on the
end of the phone line. Fi-
nally, he gave a most suc-
cinct response:
“For the love of man-
kind,” he said.
vvv
After Camille came
through and the Tye River
flooded, the mud was
knee-deep in the old store
now known as the Moun-
tain View Tea Room.
“I had to wash it all out,”
said Frances Fitzgerald,
who was and is the owner.
Then, a volunteer from the
Mennonite Disaster Ser-
vice stopped by.
“Young lady, would you
like some help?” she re-
called him asking.
“I wouldn’t mind,” she
replied.
The man left, but soon
returned with a truck filled
with other volunteers who
1970, ARCHiVE pHOTO
went to work.
“They pulled all the fur-
niture out and washed all
our stuff off,” Fitzgerald
said. “They did an excel-
lent job. I was just looking
for one or two [of them],
and they brought a whole
truckload.”
She added, “You don’t
know how much you ap-
preciate somebody until
you’re in a bind.”
vvv
Traveling to Nelson was
Shank’s first experience
with MDS; in the ensuing
decades, his volunteering
after disasters has carried
him, as he put it, “from
Florida to Maine” and a
few other places, too. He
recalls mucking out base-
ments and businesses
and assisting with some
rebuilding jobs. His wife,
Ruth, did some painting a
time or two, as well.
“I came home from Nel-
son County that first night
and I could not sleep,” said
Shank, recalling 50 years
ago as if it were yesterday.
“I was visualizing … all the
devastation, the moun-
tains washed away, all that
kind of stuff. I was young.
I had never experienced
something like that. I
couldn’t make myself real-
ize the magnitude of what
those had experienced.
Our position was to help
them to try to pick up the
pieces and go on with life.”
Beery, Shanks’ neighbor
near Dayton, figures he
traveled to Nelson “40 or
50 times” for over a year.
“I always came back
at night,” Beery said in
a phone interview. His
wife and eight children
helped pick up the slack
at the family dairy farm
while he was away. He
now has more than 100
great-grandchildren.
Beery’s late twin brother
Dan was head of the local
MDS unit at the time, and
he remembers going over
the mountain to Nelson in
the days soon after Camille
and pitching in to clean
up homes and churches.
Later, he was part of the
rebuilding effort.
Just following the para-
ble of the Good Samaritan,
he said. They weren’t look-
ing for recognition and
certainly not pay.
But they’re not opposed
to someone doing some-
thing nice for them, which
is how they ended up with
a horse-drawn hearse.
The old hearse was
in disrepair in the base-
ment of a Lovingston fu-
neral home that some of
the Mennonite volunteers
were helping to clean after
the flood. It had sat there
unused for many years,
and one of the Menno-
nites apparently com-
mented that they sure
could use a hearse like
that. The next year, the
funeral home loaded the
hearse on a trailer and
took it to the Mennonites
near Dayton.
“It needed some repair,
but we fixed it up,” Beery
said during a July conver-
sation. “We just used it this
past Saturday.”
S12 Sunday, auguSt 18, 2019 • • •
Hurricane camille
Mudslides filled a valley in Nelson County after the remnants of Camille dumped more than 2 feet of rain overnight in August 1969. In the 50 years since Camille, there have been
more instances of heavy rain leading to debris flows in Virginia, some more extreme than others.
‘Not a matter of if, but when’
The next serious storm
could hit the vulnerable
Va. mountains anytime
By JOHN BOyER
Richmond times-dispatch
Vigilance is the price of liv-
ing in the hills and valleys of
Virginia.
Camille was a freak flood, but
we have more vulnerability to
such storms than we may like to
think. And climate change will
exacerbate those risks.
The next flooding from a hur-
ricane, or its remnants, could be
years away, or it could be weeks
away.
In October 2018, Hurricane
Michael raced northeastward
into Virginia after making land-
fall as a Category 5 storm in the
Florida Panhandle. On the heels
of an unusually wet summer, it
dumped 3 to 10 inches of rain
over a swath of Virginia from
Roanoke and Danville to the
Northern Neck.
Flash flooding reached emer-
gency levels in Southside Vir-
ginia, where five people died
while in vehicles that were
trapped or swept away by high
water. A few landslides were re-
ported near Galax, but with no
fatalities.
Phil Hysell of the National
Weather Service in Blacksburg
sees it as a reminder for families
to have multiple ways to keep in
touch with weather warnings,
and one another, as they make
disaster plans.
“Many families were sepa-
rated because the roads were
flooded, and they could not re-
connect,” Hysell recalled. “Make
sure you have a plan in place to
be able to call in to a central lo-
cation outside of the impacted
area so everybody knows that
you’re OK.”
For as bad as it was, Michael
moved very quickly through our
region. The next storm could
be slower, like Florence, which
stalled and spread most of its
catastrophic rain over North
Carolina instead of Virginia.
A Florence-style storm that
focuses 20 to 30-plus inches of
rain on Virginia would sound
the alarm about river flooding,
flash flooding and landslides,
too.
“If we ever get into a situa-
tion where we’re expecting re-
cord rainfall rates, we will put
that landslide language into our
warnings if we expect 10 inches
of rain in 12 hours, or 5 inches in
6 hours,” Hysell said.
He cautions that people who
have homes on or below vulner-
able sloped mountainsides may
want to take action before a hur-
ricane’s heavy rain starts falling.
“You might want to consider,
in those situations, to evacuate
and get to a sturdier area.”
Past personal experience may
not be the best frame of refer-
ence when it comes to floods.
A low-probability event prob-
ably won’t happen on any given
day, but over a lifetime there’s
a substantial risk you’ll eventu-
ally encounter something you
haven’t seen before.
A home sits on the east ridge of Horseshoe Mountain near Hat Creek in Nelson County. Knowing your local
flood and landslide risk is an important part of making a disaster plan, according to weather experts.
Contractors worked on a bridge on U.S. 29 in
Madison County in June 1995. Thunderstorms
produced extreme rainfall in the area that month,
with totals likely exceeding 20 inches over 12 hours.
“All of these things need to
be talked about before the next
tropical system arrives because
it’s not a matter of if, but when,”
Hysell said.
vvv
Since Camille, there have been
more instances of heavy rain
leading to debris flows in our
region: some related to tropical
systems, and some not. None
had as high of a toll as Camille,
but they give us more evidence
about the potential hazards of
living in and near mountains.
A 2009 report by the U.S.
Geological Survey documented
about a dozen historic landslide
events in the west-central and
southwestern parts of Virginia.
The November 1985 floods,
partially fueled by the remnants
of Hurricane Juan, caused the
earth to give way in 3,000 places
between eastern West Virginia
and rural Highland County.
In late June 1995, thunder-
storms along a stalled front
BOB BROWN/TIMES-DISPATcH
DAIlY PROGRESS TIMES-DISPATcH
Severe flash flooding from Tropical Storm Gaston
in late August 2004 caused major damage in
Richmond’s Church Hill neighborhood, including
on Government Road near Chimborazo Hill.
produced extreme rainfall cen- century. The Virginia Depart-
tered around Madison County, ment of Mines, Minerals and
north of Charlottesville. Totals Energy estimates that they occur
likely exceeded 20 inches over somewhere in the state every 10
12 hours, and may have been to 15 years.
as high as 30 inches accord- The potential for damage and
ing to the report. Hundreds of deaths depends greatly on when
landslides occurred in the re- and where the downpours hit.
gion, mostly in western Madison Landslide risk is affected by
County. more than just rainfall rates and
The storm, while different saturated soil: there’s the shape
from Camille in important ways, of the land itself, underlying ge-
caused eerily similar scenes. ology and nearby development.
Because there was more warn- But there’s another variable
ing; it happened during the day we have power over: the climate
instead of at night; and hit less is now changing at an unnatu-
populated areas, only one per- rally rapid rate due to human
son died. activity.
Tropical Storm Gaston’s flash
vvv
flooding on Aug. 30, 2004, also
caused an 11-acre landslide on If heat-trapping greenhouse
Richmond’s Chimborazo Hill. gas emissions aren’t curbed or
While such landfall-triggering mitigated, Virginia’s vulnerabil-
extreme rain events may hap- ity to extreme tropical rainfall
pen on a scale of centuries or will increase substantially by the
millennia for any given spot, end of this century.
when we look at the state as A warmer atmosphere con-
a whole, we’d expect to see at tains higher amounts of water
least several more instances this vapor, leading to heavier rain-
Richmond timeS-diSpatch
VIRGINIA DEPARTMENT OF HIGHWAYS
storms in the right weather pat-
tern. Observations already show
that heavy rain has been occur-
ring more frequently in the east-
ern U.S. since the middle of the
20th century.
How hurricanes will behave
on a warmer planet is a topic of
ongoing research. While we may
not necessarily see more tropi-
cal systems here, some recent
studies suggest that changes
to global circulation will cause
them to move more slowly,
which is bad news as far as rain
is concerned.
Hurricanes don’t have to get
stronger or more frequent in the
tropics to make our flood risks
grow here in Virginia.
In Tidewater, accelerating sea
level rise will expose more land
to storm surge risks than before.
Weak systems — Camille was
a tropical depression, after all —
are certainly capable of bringing
excessive rain to inland areas.
The recurrence interval for
a Camille-style 27 or 31 inches
of rain over several hours is far
less than a 1% chance per year
(1 in 100) for a spot in Virginia’s
mountains.
According to estimates pub-
lished in the 1970s, making as-
sumptions based on a 20th
century atmosphere, that kind
of cloudburst was approxi-
mately a 0.1% probability per
year (1 in 1,000).
But climate scientists have
high confidence that extreme
downpours will occur more
often than they do now if emis-
sions accelerate unchecked.
Plus, our theoretical maxi-
mum precipitation could be
20% higher by 2100, meaning
our worst-case rainstorms like
Camille would be capable of
dumping several extra inches.
Kerry Emanuel, a hurricane
and climate researcher at the
Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, simulates tropi-
cal systems in a warmer world
to see changes to their tracks,
strength, wind and rainfall
statistics.
On a hotter planet, hurricanes
will tap into more moisture and
yield increasingly heavy rain.
“By the end of this century,”
Emanuel said of Camille via
email, “that would still be a
rare event but roughly twice as
likely.”
In 1969, the planet’s concen-
tration of carbon dioxide — a
heat-trapping gas — trended
at about 325 parts per million,
according to the Mauna Loa
Observatory in Hawaii. It had
already increased from pre-in-
dustrial levels of about 290 parts
per million.
Carbon dioxide levels are
now about 412 parts per million
as of 2019, while globally, the
atmosphere and oceans have
warmed in response.
Camille already demon-
strated what a rare, worst-
case local weather scenario
can look like. Our future risk
of rainstorms and floods will
be shaped — perhaps sub-
tly, perhaps greatly — by the
level of greenhouse gases going
forward.
 Celebrating the life of a riChmond legend

$3.00 • S u n d ay, J u n e 2 3 , 2 0 1 9 • n e W S 2 4/ 7 a t R I C H M O n d . C O M • FInaL

Ashe
tIMeS-dISpatCH

ARTHUR
On a street where he was once banned from playing tennis,
Arthur Ashe’s name will now reside forever

Copyright © 2019, 169th Year, No. 174

4-page s p ec i a l s ecti o n
Page 2 The life of ArThur Ashe | Page 3 MichAel PAul WilliAMs | Page 4 dedicATing boulevArd
 Arthur Ashe
S2 Sunday, June 23, 2019 • • • Richmond TimeS-diSpaTch

A R T H U R A S H E

A HISTORIC
TIMELINE
1940 July 10, 1943:
| • • • • • • • • • | • • • • • • • • • | • • • • • • • • • | • • • • • • • • • | • • • • • • • • • | • • • • • • • • • | • • • • • • • • • | • • • • • • • • • |

arthur ashe Jr. is born

in Richmond.

1963: ashe helps the

united States’ davis
cup team defeat
australia, the reigning
champion, and win the
cup. he also helped the TIMES-DISPATCH
u.S. to davis cup cham-
pionships from 1968 to ABOVE: In May 1968, Arthur Ashe played
1970 and in 1978. in the first round of the Davis Cup at Byrd
1950 Park in Richmond.
June 21, 1965: ashe
and his ucLa team- LEFT: Ashe held his trophy for the U.S.
mates win the ncaa Open singles championship as he stood
tennis championship. arm in arm with his father, Arthur Ashe
Sr., who fought back tears following
Sept. 9, 1968: ashe
his son’s victory at Forest Hills, N.Y., in
defeats Tom okker of
September 1968.
the netherlands in five
sets to win the u.S.
BELOW: Ashe and Jimmy Connors shared
open.
a handshake after Ashe’s victory in the
men’s singles finals at Wimbledon in July
1970: ashe defeats
1975. Ashe was the first African American
five australians and
to win the singles championship.
a fellow american on
1960 THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
the way to winning the
australian open.

July 5, 1975: ashe

reigns at Wimble-
don, defeating Bjorn
Borg in the quarterfi-
nals and top-seeded
Jimmy connors in the
final. he becomes the
first black man to win
the singles title at
Wimbledon.
1970
1977: ashe marries
Jeanne moutous-
samy, a photographer.
in 1986, they adopt a
daughter and name
her camera.

1979: at age 36, ashe

suffers a heart attack
that requires bypass
surgery. he suffers
another heart attack
in 1983, which requires
1980 another surgery.
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
April 16, 1980:
ashe announces
his retirement from
competitive tennis.

1985: ashe becomes

the first african ameri-
can man inducted into
the international Ten-
nis hall of Fame.

1988: during brain

1990 surgery, ashe is di-
agnosed with hiV
— stemming from
a blood transfusion
during heart surgery
after his second heart
attack.

April 8, 1992: ashe

announces he has con-
tracted the aidS virus. THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Feb. 6, 1993:
ashe dies at age 49 ABOVE: Ashe and
2000 photographer
in new york city. he THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
is buried in Richmond Jeanne
four days later. Moutoussamy ABOVE: The casket bearing Ashe’s body
were married was carried into the Executive Mansion
July 10, 1996: in 1977 by U.N. in Richmond on Feb. 9, 1993, three days
Richmond unveils the ambassador and after his death in New York City.
ashe statue at the ordained minister
intersection of monu- Andrew Young. BELOW: Several thousand people
ment avenue and Ashe’s brother, attended the 1996 ceremony for the
Roseneath Road. The John Ashe, served unveiling of the Arthur Ashe statue on
honor makes him the as the best man. Monument Avenue. The statue was the
first african american work of sculptor Paul DiPasquale.
enshrined on the fa-
2010 mous street. LEFT: Ashe
showed the scar
Feb. 19, 1997: The left by the cardiac
united States Tennis bypass surgery
association names the he underwent
center court stadium following a heart
of its new facility in attack in 1979.
new york in ashe’s Then 36, Ashe
honor. would suffer
another heart
Feb. 11, 2019: The attack in 1983.
Richmond city council THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
votes to rename the
Boulevard in ashe’s
2020 honor. BOB BROWN/TIMES-DISPATCH

ABOUT THE COVER PHOTO because it wasn’t aesthetically

perfect because of the shadow on
thing about this photo and the
casual pose that seemed to speak
ashe will forever be linked to
Richmond, and we are delighted
the background and a vignette of more about ashe and his future we can share a part of history that
as a 17-year-old rising senior at elaborate photo session, just a light that didn’t quite cover that potential, as well as his innocence. places him at the start of a trajec-
maggie Walker high School, arthur photo to capture another in a regu- background. after years of combing through tory that saw him reach the height
ashe was one of many local ath- lar Saturday series on high school What appeared in the paper our archives and running just about of his sport and become a national
letes who came to the Richmond leaders. however, the photographer in 1960 was another view, a half- every photo we have, it was pure civic leader.
Times-dispatch for what we refer shot a few frames that turned out column, tightly cropped frame serendipity that we discovered
to as a “head shot.” to be something more. i’m sure this without the shadow, with a more something of such a famous face James H. Wallace,
it wasn’t supposed to be an one wasn’t selected for the paper serious pose. But there was some- that the world has never seen. Times-Dispatch photo editor

Richmond Times-dispaTch
A contact sheet shows Arthur Ashe in the Richmond Times-Dispatch’s photo studio in 1964, when he was 21. Four years later, he would win the U.S. Open. Renaming the
Boulevard for Ashe took three attempts — the first effort took place shortly after his death in 1993.
Renaming paves way for progress
A
s Richmond contin-
ues its evolution into a
more equitable place,
its street names should reflect
that journey.
On this auspicious week-
end, that journey arrives —
but must not end — at the
logical destination of Arthur
Ashe Boulevard.
This was a hard road to
glory, dating back to shortly
after Ashe’s death
OPINION in 1993, when the
idea of renaming
the Boulevard in his name was
floated for the first of three at-
tempts by the Richmond City
Council.
Our city has maintained a
curious relationship with its
most famous native son, fail-
ing him in life and in death.
That failure was most notable
in our inability to realize his
dream of an African American
sports hall of fame — a vision
based on his three-volume
work, “A Hard Road to Glory,”
a history of black athletes.
Ashe nephew David Har-
ris Jr. and Councilwoman Kim
Gray ultimately pushed Ashe
Boulevard through. To finally
honor him in the fashion he
deserves represents more of a
triumph for Richmond — over
itself and its demons — than
for Ashe, whose legacy hardly
requires burnishing.
“I think that the renaming
shows that even though it took
a long time, these things can
be done,” said historian Ed
Ayers, president emeritus of
the University of Richmond.
“People understand that
memorialization matters; that
the names that we give things
have consequences.”
Who should know this bet-
ter than the former capital of
the Confederacy, whose abun-
Arthur Ashe
A R T H U R
Michael Paul Williams
mwilliams@TimesDispatch.com
dance of Lost Cause iconogra-
phy gives us the appearance of
being frozen in time?
The rebranding of this his-
toric boulevard reflects a
transformation that goes be-
yond street signs.
Developed into an ideologi-
cal cousin of Monument Ave-
nue, this boulevard’s addresses
included the United Daughters
of the Confederacy Memorial
Building and the Confederate
Memorial Institute, or Battle
Abbey, later home to the Vir-
ginia Historical Society.
Stonewall Jackson’s monu-
ment sat a few blocks away.
Today, the Historical Society
has been renamed the Virginia
Museum of History & Culture.
The Virginia Museum of
Fine Arts, once as inviting as
a fortress, has expanded its
building, bolstered its Afri-
can American collections and
broadened its appeal. A black
man, Monroe Harris, presides
over its board of trustees, with
a distinct vantage point on
this historic occasion.
“I think that it sends a tre-
mendous statement about
what progress means, in that
we have a street that obviously
celebrates a cause that is the
antithesis to progress for black
people in this country,” Harris
said, referring to Monument
Avenue.
“And now, we are naming
the street that intersects with
it for a man who, a lot of his
life, was trying to right the in-
justices of people who were
being oppressed.”
The irony surrounding Ar-
thur Ashe Boulevard wasn’t
lost on Harvey Graves of Ches-
terfield County.
“It’s just amazing to me that
they’re including Byrd Park as
part of his legacy when they
wouldn’t let him play here,”
he said Wednesday evening,
after hitting balls with Priscilla
Woody and Tanisha Moseley
on the Byrd Park courts.
He called the renaming of
The rebranding
of this historic
boulevard reflects
a transformation
that goes beyond
street signs.
the street “huge” and “inclu-
sive. So that would be, I guess,
some restitution for the past.”
Author Raymond Arsenault
plunged into that past in his
biography of the tennis great,
“Arthur Ashe: A Life.”
“I think he clearly under-
stood the importance of sym-
bolism,” Arsenault, the John
Hope Franklin Professor of
Southern History at the Uni-
versity of South Florida, said
during a phone interview
Thursday. “And I think to a
large extent, he made peace
with Richmond.”
He likened Ashe’s gener-
ous spirit to that of U.S. Rep.
John Lewis of Georgia, the
civil rights icon and keynote
speaker at the Ashe Boulevard
dedication.
A S H E
“I think he would really see
the positive aspects of this —
the move in Richmond from
the Confederate heritage and
all that to also celebrating its
civil rights heritage, which I
think this is a big part of. He’s
really the most famous person
to come out of Richmond, so
it’s very fitting.”
For so long, Richmond’s
streetscape, no doubt by de-
sign, imposed psychological
limits on its black residents
to match the codified limits
of Jim Crow. Our place in this
city was defined by who was
celebrated in public spaces of
honor — and, more tellingly,
who was not.
Today, when we drive along
Arthur Ashe Boulevard, we
can contemplate with wonder
Ashe’s achievements in the
face of tremendous adversity.
“It has the consequences of
elevating us and who we can
be,” Ayers said.
The boulevard has the
power not merely to alter
our perceptions, but those of
outsiders.
“We’ve been working so very
hard to bring the new Civil War
museum into fruition. We’ve
borne the burden of being the
former capital of the Confed-
eracy for a long time,” Ayers
said. Acknowledging our most
famous native son of modern
times “will give people con-
fidence that Richmond is at-
tuned to the more recent past
as well as the distant past.”
This turn of events has the
capacity to be delightfully
disorienting.
“I got in my car the other
day,” said Woody, part of the
trio hitting balls at Byrd Park.
“I use Waze [a GPS naviga-
tional system] and I was get-
ting directions to some law
• • • sunday, June 23, 2019 S3
TiMes-DisPaTch file PhoTo
firm, and there it was: Arthur
Ashe Boulevard. It’s already in
Waze. It’s probably on Google
Maps. So it’s something to
applaud.”
Graves said the old estab-
lishment is fading. New out-
spoken voices are filling the
void, opening Richmond to
new ideas.
“Richmond’s known for the
history of the Civil War and
all that and the Confederacy,
but it changes the outlook. It
gives other people who aren’t
wanting to be attached to that
stigma, you know, some hope
to look at some other things
differently — to look at the
city differently, really,” Graves
said.
“I think education is going
to be the biggest thing: having
people, especially the younger
kids, understand, not just
knowing the name but know-
ing what’s behind the name.”
With Ashe Boulevard so
named, it will be impossible
to forget the legacy of this ten-
nis champion and humanitar-
ian who overcame stymieing
segregation in his hometown
and his nation and helped dis-
mantle a racial caste system in
South Africa.
Let’s be clear: Richmond
can never repay the debt it
owes to Ashe. But this is a
down payment.
“You can’t ever atone for
all the sins of the past,” Har-
ris said, “but it’s moving in the
right direction.”
This boulevard of dreams is
less a final destination than an
avenue toward a more equi-
table city. Or as Arsenault said,
“It paves the way for better
days ahead.”
mwilliams@timesdispatch.com
(804) 649-6815
Twitter: @RTDMPW

S4 Sunday, June 23, 2019 • • •
David Harris Jr. (left), Arthur Ashe’s nephew, hugged Richmond City Councilwoman Kim Gray as Mayor Levar Stoney applauded after the unveiling of the new signs designating
Arthur Ashe Boulevard. Local, state and congressional officials sung Ashe’s praises at the renaming ceremony at the Virginia Museum of History & Culture on Saturday.
‘A spectacular and momentous day’
Thousands participate as Richmond celebrates formal renaming of Arthur Ashe Boulevard
By MARK ROBINSON
Richmond Times-dispatch
T
housands gath-
ered Saturday
to celebrate
the formal renaming
of Arthur Ashe Bou-
levard, an occasion
leaders hailed as a
long overdue step to-
ward honoring Rich-
mond’s native son and
embracing African
American history.
“This is truly a spectacu-
lar and momentous day,”
said David Harris Jr., Ashe’s
nephew. Harris led the suc-
cessful push to rename the
road formerly known as
the Boulevard for his uncle,
who overcame prejudice to
become a legend in a sport
dominated by white ath-
letes. Off the tennis court,
Ashe was renowned for his
humanitarian work and
anti-apartheid activism.
Between 2,000 and 3,000
people, including dozens
of Ashe’s relatives, gath-
ered on the lawn of the
Virginia Museum of His-
tory & Culture to witness
the unveiling of new Ar-
thur Ashe Boulevard signs
that will now mark the busy
thoroughfare.
Local, state and congres-
sional officials, among them
U.S. Rep. John Lewis from
Georgia, sung Ashe’s praises
and marked the occasion
as a significant milestone in
Virginia’s commemoration
of the 400th anniversary of
the arrival of the first en-
slaved Africans in 1619.
“Think about Arthur
Ashe, what he did, the con-
tribution he made, coming
out of this city, out of this
state, out of this country,”
said Lewis, the celebration’s
keynote speaker.
Ashe was born in Rich-
mond in 1943. He died in
1993 at 49 of complica-
tions related to AIDS after
contracting HIV through
a blood transfusion dur-
ing surgery. He is the only
African American man to
win Wimbledon, U.S. Open
and Australian Open tennis
titles.
In 1996, the city unveiled
a bronze statue of Ashe at
the intersection of Monu-
ment Avenue and Rose-
neath Road, making him
the first — and to date, only
— African American hon-
ored on Richmond’s most
famous street.
In remarks Saturday,
Arthur Ashe
Richmond TimeS-diSpaTch
A R T H U R A S H E
JOE MAHONEY/TiMEs-DispATCH
Watch the unveiling
For video and more
photos from the arthur ashe
events, visit Richmond.com.
Side, honing abilities that
would launch him to the
pinnacle of a sport no Afri-
can American had reached
before.
Once a professional,
Ashe returned to the Byrd
Park courts as the first black
member of the U.S. Davis
Cup team and led them to
victory in 1968.
Fifty years after the tri-
umph, the Richmond City
Council voted this past
February to rename the
Boulevard. It was the third
effort to rename the street
for Ashe; previous attempts
failed in 1993 and 2003.
Councilwoman Kim Gray
proposed the name change
this time, calling it an op-
portunity to demonstrate
the progress Richmond has
made toward racial recon-
ALEXA WELCH EDLUND/TiMEs-DispATCH ciliation. Gray, whose dis-
trict includes a portion of
ABOVE: Tennis the street, met with civic
instructor associations, residents and
Jamani Jones business owners in the
threw a ball area to rally support for the
for 3-year- initiative.
old DerMon Some were wary. A group
Threatts at a of Boulevard residents
community made a last-ditch effort
celebration at to delay a decision on the
Battery Park matter, saying there hadn’t
on Saturday. been enough input. Some
suggested renaming an-
other street in Ashe’s honor,
not theirs.
Heading into the vote, it
MIDDLE: U.S. remained an open question
Rep. John whether the nine-member
Lewis from council would endorse the
Georgia was idea. But after an over-
the keynote whelming show of support
speaker at at a public hearing before
Saturday’s the vote, it did.
unveiling JOE MAHONEY/TiMEs-DispATCH
Fighting back tears after
ceremony. unveiling the new street
“Think about more inclusive and accept- signs Saturday, Gray said
Arthur ing community. she would remember the
Ashe, what “By naming this bou- day for the show of unity
he did, the levard after Arthur Ashe, she saw on display.
contribution we’re once again parting Throngs of people
he made,” with our darker past and climbed the museum’s
he told the embracing our brighter fu- steps after the ceremony
crowd. ture,” Stoney said. concluded to get a closer
U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine of look at the new signs. Some
Virginia called the new ventured inside to see an
name “an act of healing” exhibit that opened Satur-
BOTTOM: of which all of Richmond day called “Determined:
Andre could be proud. The 400-year Struggle For
Cannady (left) Ashe grew up in a differ- Black Equality.” The mu-
and Silas ent Richmond, one where seum also unveiled a spe-
Poindexter racial divisions were starker cial virtual reality exhibit
install an and enforced unceasingly. featuring archival footage
Arthur Ashe ALEXA WELCH EDLUND/TiMEs-DispATCH As a child, he was barred from Ashe’s famed 1968
Boulevard from practicing at the ten- U.S. Open victory.
sign at the Richmond Mayor Levar Civil War. The newly named nis courts at Byrd Park, lo- Standing amid the scene,
intersection Stoney said Ashe was “the Arthur Ashe Boulevard in- cated at the south end of Gray said, “I’m just over-
of Arthur Ashe only true champion” on the tersects Monument Avenue the Boulevard, because of whelmed with emotion.”
Boulevard and street that features promi- in what Stoney said sym- the color of his skin. In- mrobinson@timesdispatch.com
Kensington nent iconography of Con- bolized progress the city is stead, he practiced at seg- (804) 649-6734
Avenue. federate leaders from the making toward becoming a regated courts on the North Twitter: @__MarkRobinson